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THE   HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH,  from  its  remote 
origins  to  the  present  time      Boston,  Houghton  Mif- 
flin Company. 
THE    CORSICAN.     A  Diary  of  Napoleon's  Life  in  his 

own  words.     Boston,  Houghton  Mifflin  Company. 
THE  ROMAN  THEOCRACY  AND  THE  REPUBLIC. 

London,  Macmillan  &  Co. 
NAPOLEON,  A    SHORT    BIOGRAPHY.     New  York, 

Henry  Holt  &  Co. 
THE  NAPOLEONIC  EMPIRE  IN  SOUTHERN  ITALY, 

2  vols.     London,  Macmillan  &  Co. 
MEMOIRS     OF    "  MALAKOFF,"    2    vols.     London, 

Hutchinson  &  Co. 
LEADING  AMERICAN  SOLDIERS.  New  York,  Henry 

Holt  &  Co. 
THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION,  A  SHORT  HISTORY. 

New  York,  Henfy  Holt  &  Co. 
MEMOIRE     DE     MARIE    CAROLINE,    REINE    DE 
NAPLES.     New  York,  Longmans,  Green  &  Co. 


THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN   CHURCH 


THE 
HOLY  CHEISTIAN  CHUECH 

FROM  ITS  REMOTE  ORIGINS 
TO  THE  PRESENT  DAY 

BY 

R.  M.  JOHNSTON 


BOSTON   AND   NEW  TORK 
HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN    COMPANY 

1912 


COPYRIGHT,    1912,   BY   R.   M.  JOHNSTON 
ALL    RIGHTS    RESERVED 

Published  October  iqi2 


TO 
J.    THEODORE  MERZ 


PREFACE 

The  methods  and  aims  of  this  book  are  so  amply 
dealt  with  in  the  introduction,  that  there  is  happily 
little  left  with  which  to  weary  the  reader  by  way  of 
preface.  Unexpectedly  enough  the  modern  period  has 
proved  the  most  difficult  and  least  satisfactory  to  com- 
pose. For  above  all  things  it  appeared  necessary  that 
the  centuries  lying  between  the  Reformation  and  the 
present  day  should  not  occupy  more  than  the  two 
chapters  allotted  to  them.  Had  the  modern  period 
been  dealt  with  on  a  larger  scale,  the  proportion  would 
have  been  lost  exactly  in  the  way  in  which  it  is  gen- 
erally lost  when  men  attempt  to  think  back  from  the 
present  to  the  past.  The  proportion  was  the  essential 
thing,  and  in  the  thankless  task  of  trying  to  attain  it 
many  mangled  remains  have,  with  compunction  and 
regret,  been  strewn  along  my  path. 

I  have  to  acknowledge  the  valuable  help  of  my 
friend  and  colleague  Professor  Toy,  of  Harvard  Uni- 
versity, who  read  the  draft  of  the  first  six  chapters 
and  made  many  valuable  suggestions ;  he  is  not,  how- 
ever, responsible  for  any  statements  I  have  made. 


CONTENTS 


Introduction ^^ 

I.   Greek  and  Roman  Thought  before  Christ       .      3 
n.  Before  the  Captivity  of  Babylon  ...        13 

III.  From  the  Captivity  to  Christ     .        .        .        .26 

IV.  Jesus ^^ 

V.  Paul         

VI.  From  a.d.  70  to  a.d.  312 9* 

VII.  From  a.d.  70  to  a.d.  312  (continued)  .        .  HO 

VIII.    The  Conversion  of  Constantine      ...      132 

IX.  The  Last  Roman  Emperors  .        .        •        •  l^^ 

X.  Justinian  and  Gregory  the  Great  .        .      167 

1A1 
XI.  The  Millennium ^°^ 

Xn.  After  the  Millennium ^^'^ 

Xm.  Dante,  Petrarch,  and  Borgli      .        .        .        .222 

XIV.  The  Reformation 

XV.  From  the  Peace  of  Westphalia  to  the  Vatican 

Council ^^^ 

XVI.  Cross-Currents ^^^ 

Index ^^ 


INTRODUCTION 

The  attitude  of  our  time  towards  Christianity  has 
many  aspects  easier  to  summarize  than  to  explain. 
These  range  all  the  way  from  the  Papal  view,  with 
its  strict  doctrine  of  inspiration,  authority,  and  disci- 
pline, to  that  other  extreme,  immediately  beyond 
which  lies  the  non-Christian  view,  whether  hostile  or 
indifferent.  Between  them  the  great  educated  mass 
of  western  Europe  and  America  holds  an  uncertain 
position  with  a  tendency,  perhaps,  to  shift  unevenly 
towards  the  two  extremes.  From  the  group  of  the  in- 
tellectual Catholics,  or  Modernists,  to  the  least  dog- 
matic of  the  Protestant  sects,  there  exists  a  great, 
vague  mass  of  Christian  thought  that  lacks  the  defi- 
niteness  found  on  either  side  of  it,  and  about  which 
some  general  propositions  can  be  formulated. 

In  this  average  body  of  Christianity  in  flux,  as  it 
may  be  called,  two  general  tendencies  may  be  noted. 
The  first,  which  is  also  the  more  general,  is  in  line  with 
the  strict  Roman  position ;  it  is  that  which  is  prevail- 
ing more  and  more  widely  in  Protestant  countries 
at  the  present  day  and  that  merges  religious  practice 
into  the  habitual  social  custom  that  implies  the  maxi- 
mum of  respectability  with  the  minimum  of  thought; 
it  is  a  tendency  as  deep-seated  as  the  sluggishness 
of  the  ordinary  intellect  and  the  ordinary  conscience. 
And  there  can  be  little  enough  room  for  intellectual 
unrest  where  the  attitude  is  one  of  mere  resistance  to 


xii  INTRODUCTION 

all  that  is  not  customary,  of  anathema  for  all  that  is 
non-habitual;  and  all  this  increasing  emphasis  on 
observance  is  accompanied  by  a  decreasing  interest 
in  dogma. 

The  second  of  these  general  tendencies  is  that  found 
among  more  reflective  and  more  courageous  minds, 
and  here  are  in  fact  the  readers  that  this  book  has  in 
view.  They  are  individuals  of  all  sects  and  creeds,  and 
of  all  degrees  of  education,  who  feel  working  within 
them  the  fundamental  thought  of  our  age,  the  evo- 
lutionary idea,  the  perception  that  the  Cosmos  is 
not  static  but  fluid,  and  who  attempt  to  bring  this 
thought  into  accord  with  their  religious  ideas.  The 
struggle  takes  on  diverse  shapes.  It  reformulates  the 
old  formulas  under  a  more  or  less  Darwinian  guise.  It 
screens  ugly  chasms  of  Hebraic  deism  with  the  flowers 
of  opportunistic  allegory.  It  timidly  seeks  enlighten- 
ment; dubiously  delves  into  history;  persuades  itself 
into  scientific  attitudes  and  certainties,  forgetting 
that  in  pure  science  thousands  of  exploded  fallacies 
form  the  base  of  the  insecure  knowledge  of  to-day. 
It  cloaks  religion  with  morality,  and  dogma  with  eth- 
ics; or  it  affects  historical  scepticism  as  the  founda- 
tion of  a  neo-Christian  rationalism,  and  generally 
shows  the  confusion  that  might  be  expected  of  intelli- 
gent beings  who  are  conscientiously  attempting  to 
reconcile  two  such  profoundly  different  things  as  the 
thought  of  the  centuries  that  witnessed  the  forma- 
tion of  Christianity  and  that  of  the  present  age. 

For  when  such  conscientious  and  intelligent  per- 
sons look  backwards  in  an  attempt  to  solve  their  dif- 


INTRODUCTION  xiii 

ficulties  and  to  reach  a  personal  interpretation  of 
Christianity,  what  is  it  that  faces  them?  Human 
knowledge.  And  what  is  human  knowledge?  An  ac- 
cumulation, in  the  worst  sense  of  the  term,  with  only 
here  and  there  a  real  effort  at  creating  form  from 
chaos.  And  so  to  look  backwards  at  Christianity 
means  essentially  taking  a  number  of  isolated  peeps 
at  numerous  things  not  obviously  related,  and  so 
remote  from  our  own  conditions  as  to  give  no  sense 
of  reality.  The  Hebrews  of  Moses  and  Solomon; 
Athens  of  the  Age  of  Pericles;  Gnostic  philosophy; 
Jesus;  the  early  martyrs;  Monasticism;  the  Papacy; 
and  a  dozen  other  matters  are  not  readily  fitted 
to  one  another,  have  no  convincing  connectedness. 
Each  is  a  province  under  the  sway  of  specialists, 
philologians,  historians,  philosophers,  archaeologists, 
divines,  folklorists  and  others.  Each  has  a  literature, 
tending  more  and  more  to  become  a  glut  of  critical 
snippets  deeply  embedded  in  increasingly  technical 
reviews.  Each  exacts  years  of  study  for  a  thorough 
acquaintance,  and  for  that  very  reason  tends  to  ex- 
clude knowledge  of  what  lies  next  door.  And  by  such 
means  the  enquirer  who  starts  with  a  desire  to  know 
about  Christianity  generally  finishes,  if  sufficiently 
persistent,  in  learning  something  of  a  special  topic, 
which  he  is  little  more  able  than  before  to  bring  into 
line  with  his  essential  thought. 

All  this  must  have  made  the  secret  plain.  The  ob- 
ject of  this  book  is  chiefly  to  attempt  coordination, 
to  seize  the  proportions,  the  relations,  the  movement, 
the  essential  facts  of  Christianity  as  seen  over  a  period 


xiv  INTRODUCTION 

of  more  than  two  thousand  years,  over  nations  that 
stretch  from  Kashmir  to  Cahfornia,  over  civilizations 
as  wide  apart  as  those  of  the  Age  of  Pericles  and  of 
Napoleon,  of  Gnosticism  and  of  the  Trusts.  As  these 
words  are  written,  the  effort  seems  almost  foolhardy. 
There  are  difficulties  in  more  than  one  direction 
clearly  insurmountable.  The  scholar  whose  field  is 
more  especially  modern  history  and  who  ventures 
into  the  Middle  Ages  is  bold;  yet  in  this  case  the 
Middle  Ages  may  seem  modern  and  simple  com- 
pared with  the  infinitely  delicate  ground  of  the  three 
centuries  before  Jesus.  Most  difficult  of  all  is  that 
mysterious  figure  itself,  whose  name  has  been  the 
chameleon  label  with  which  the  great  mass  of  West- 
ern humanity  has  for  so  many  centuries  bedecked  its 
hopes  and  its  ideals.  If  the  attempt  is  here  made  to 
place  it  in  its  tremendous  setting,  it  is  with  a  full 
realization  of  how  inadequate  the  best  efforts  must 
remain,  of  how  certain  will  be  the  retribution  meted 
out  to  a  scholarship  that  must  inevitably  stumble 
over  many  details,  and  yet  with  a  bold  resolve  to  do 
all  that  can  be  done  with  care  and  conscience,  to  set 
out  fairly  the  greatest  of  all  histories,  almost  that  of 
Western  civilization  itself.  And  after  all  there  is  a 
justification.  The  history  of  the  Christian  Church 
as  a  whole  has  never  been  written.  Many  histori- 
ans even  openly  evade  the  subject,  deal  with  the 
Middle  Ages  as  though  the  establishment  and 
growth  of  the  Church  were  not  the  central  fact  but 
only  a  subsidiary  incident,  very  much  as  the  ordinary 
man  shrugs  his  shoulders  and  avoids  a  topic  with 


INTRODUCTION  xv 

which  he  feels  himself  unable  to  grapple.  It  is  just 
that,  more  than  anything  else,  which  may  validate 
this  halting  attempt  to  set  out  the  facts  of  a  great 
movement  in  the  terms  of  dispassionate  historical 
observation. 

Introductory  material  is  wearisome,  yet  there  is 
another  aspect  of  this  book  which  it  is  essential  to 
state  clearly  at  the  earhest  possible  moment.  The 
reader  should  have  before  him  the  point  of  view  that 
lies  behind  the  method  of  this  historical  enquiry,  and 
for  this  purpose  a  few  more  paragraphs  are  necessary. 

A  German  theologian,  who  has  deeply  impressed 
modern  thought,  took  as  his  point  of  departure  the 
idea  that,  in  the  nature  of  things,  Christianity  could 
not  exist  at  the  time  of  Jesus,  but  only  after  his  death. 
This  is  little  more  than  a  matter  of  definition,  and 
there  is  no  need  to  quarrel  with  it;  yet,  to  study 
the  history  of  Christianity  in  a  modern  spirit,  it  is 
necessary  to  go  back  not  merely  to  the  time  of  Jesus, 
but  to  a  period  stretching  back  several  centuries 
beyond.  And  to  make  clear  why  that  which  is  there- 
fore not,  strictly  speaking,  Christianity,  is  included  in 
its  history  we  must  cast  a  quick,  preliminary  glance 
at  certain  currents  of  thought  of  our  own  age,  and 
of  that  immediately  preceding  it. 

Only  a  few  centuries  ago  Roman  Christianity  was 
the  universal  religion  of  western  Europe,  buttressed 
by  the  supremacy  of  the  Latin  tongue,  based  on  the 
authority  of  the  Papal  hierarchy  and  tradition.  It  is 
only  a  slight  exaggeration  to  say  that  the  structure 
was  rigid  in  appearance,  with  no  generally  discernible 


xvi  INTRODUCTION 

semblance  of  movement  forward  or  backward,  and 
that  thought  concerning  it  was  static.  The  Church 
appeared  to  be  four  square,  immovable,  unchanging.^ 

Then  came  the  Reformation,  the  attack  from 
within,  a  splitting  of  the  great  rock  in  two;  and 
thought  changed.  There  arose  a  current  of  criticism, 
of  investigation :  —  What  mean  the  ceremonies  of  the 
Church?  Whence  do  Popes,  Cardinals,  Bishops  de- 
rive their  authority?  What  were  the  actual  words  that 
Jesus  spoke?  And,  in  terms  of  action,  Calvinism, 
Anglicanism,  Puritanism,  were  some  of  the  repKes  to 
these  questions;  and  thought,  in  the  sixteenth  and 
seventeenth  century,  took  on  new  hues. 

But  it  went  further.  Started  now  on  the  road  of 
investigation  and  criticism,  furnished  with  new  lan- 
guages fresh  minted  for  this  new  work,  thought  soon 
burst  the  bonds  of  the  new  isms,  just  as  incapable  of 
remaining  within  the  limits  of  Lutheranism  or  Pres- 
byterianism  as  it  had  been  within  those  of  Romanism. 
The  result  was  a  further  splitting  of  Protestant  Christ- 
ianity into  the  hundreds  of  sects  now  in  existence, 
representing  an  infinite  variety  of  more  or  less  Christ- 
ian beliefs,  a  splitting  so  constantly  resplit  as  to  be 
more  like  crumbling  than  splitting. 

There  was  one  point  in  Europe,  however,  where, 
although  intellectualism  was  exceedingly  vigorous, 
the  repressive  force  of  government  was  so  strong  that 
until  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century  this  process 
was  very  much  retarded;  while  England  and  Ger- 
1  This  statement  is  subject  to  qualifications  that  will  be 
found  in  the  narrative. 


INTRODUCTION  xvii 

many  were  becoming  Protestant  in  the  sense  which 
still  holds  good,  France  was  held  down  to  the  old 
conditions  by  Rome  and  the  Bourbons,  with  this 
curious  result,  that  when,  in  the  eighteenth  century, 
Bourbonism  rapidly  began  to  fall  to  pieces,  French 
thought  suddenly  overleaped  many  transitions, 
voiced  its  criticism  and  the  result  of  its  investigations 
not  in  the  tentative  or  modifying  shape  of  Luther  or 
Calvin,  but  in  a  form  that  went  beyond  even  the 
most  advanced  Protestant  thought.  The  long  pent- 
up  intellectualism  of  France  suddenly  burst  through 
the  old  creed  and  swept  it  for  a  moment  completely 
away;  Atheism  reigned  among  her  governing  classes, 
and  Christianity  suffered  anew  as  it  had  at  the  time 
of  Diocletian. 

This  was  too  sudden,  too  extreme,  to  last  long. 
Catholicism  came  back  with  a  vigour  that  ran  strong 
for  a  considerable  part  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
During  the  whole  of  that  epoch  in  France,  and  dur- 
ing the  early  part  of  it  elsewhere,  the  struggle  con- 
tinued on  the  new  lines,  Christianity  versus  Atheism. 
But  if  for  a  moment  we  leave  on  one  side  the  Latin 
countries  and  turn  to  the  Teutonic,  thought  takes  a 
marked  turn  in  a  new  direction  from  about  the  middle 
of  the  nineteenth  century. 

Scientific  investigation  of  nature  had  for  some  time 
been  increasing  with  rapidity  when  Darwin  came  to 
gather  up  the  elements  of  the  evolutionary  ideas  into 
an  attractive  summary  adequately  supplied  with  fas- 
cinating formulas.  Average  intellect  thrives  on  a 
diet  of  formulas.    So  the  evolutionary  doctrines  won 


xviii  INTRODUCTION 

proselytes  in  all  directions,  and  have  since  then  be- 
come the  substratum  of  our  thought. 

This  is  clearly  not  the  place  to  launch  out  into  any 
lengthened  consideration  of  evolutionary  doctrines; 
a  few  somewhat  obvious  generalizations  will  suflB- 
ciently  clear  the  ground.  First  of  all,  it  is  evident 
that  no  thinker  in  touch  with  the  movement  of  the 
present  century  can  escape  the  conviction  that  evo- 
lutionism, in  the  broad  sense  of  that  word,  represents 
a  point  of  view  that  transcends  the  static  idea  with 
which  Greek  philosophy  through  the  Christian  creed 
saturated  European  thought.  We  are  at  the  present 
moment  repudiating  Aristotelianism  and  reverting 
with  astonishing  rapidity  to  a  modernized  or  scien- 
tized  form  of  nature  worship.  It  is  the  force  of 
nature,  the  push  of  life,  the  movement,  the  constant 
flux,  the  conditions  of  change,  the  relativity  and  con- 
ditioning of  one  thing  to  another  in  never-ending  se- 
quence of  growth  and  decay,  and  birth  and  growth 
again,  that  enchains  our  attention  while  it  baffles 
our  language,  too  early  crystallized  into  non-fluid 
forms.  And  it  will  be  generally  admitted  that  the 
ancient  struggle  between  Christianity  and  its  enemies 
has  been  very  materially  diverted  from  its  old  cur- 
rent by  the  growth  of  these  ideas.  Both  the  church- 
man and  his  opponent  now  tend  more  and  more  to 
come  to  a  common  ground  and  to  think  of  Christ- 
ianity after  the  new  mode.  The  word  truth  is  slowly 
but  surely  being  relegated  to  the  pigeonhole  as  a 
meaningless  exorcism  from  the  intellectual  juggling 
bag  of  the  Aristotelians,  while  the  word  movement 


INTRODUCTION  xix 

is  coming  into  more  and  more  common  use.  We  do 
not  say,  is  Christianity  true?  is  this  or  that  dogma 
good?  but  we  say,  —  what  does  the  Christianity  of 
to-day  proceed  from?  and  what  is  it  proceeding  to? 
what  is  its  relation  to  life  at  our  given  point,  and 
during  our  brief  moment?  Both  Atheist  and  Christ- 
ian tend  to  agree  in  a  different  conception  of  fact  as 
a  matter  of  growth,  change,  condition,  and  rela- 
tion. Only  in  such  terms  as  these  can  men  of  the 
present  age  think. 

These  few  paragraphs,  into  which  rather  more  has 
been  compressed  than  they  can  quite  conveniently 
hold,  may  serve  to  indicate  the  point  of  view  from 
which  the  history  of  Christianity  is  now  to  be  ap- 
proached. It  is  that  of  to-day,  or  in  other  words  one 
that  is  evolutionary  or  fluid,  one  that  is  searching  for 
movement  and  not  for  abstract  truth,  one  that  is 
trying  to  seize  the  interrelation  of  a  hundred  factors 
and  not  to  manufacture  a  new  formula.  And  the 
first  step  in  such  a  process  is  clear.  Whether  we 
think  of  Christianity  as  coming  into  existence  at  the 
birth  of  Christ,  or  at  any  other  moment  between  that 
date  and  the  conversion  of  Constantine,  we  must  first 
find  the  seed  from  which  it  germinated,  examine  the 
soil  in  which  that  seed  was  planted,  the  atmosphere 
that  developed  it,  in  fact  the  hundred  factors  that 
preceded  the  thing  itself  and  made  it  possible.  For 
Christianity,  like  so  much  else  in  this  world,  is  a 
composite,  and  its  rudimentary  elements  seem  far 
apart  when  we  remember  that  its  organization  and 
cosmopolitanism  came  chiefly  from  Rome,  its  dogma 


XX  INTRODUCTION 

largely  from  Alexandria,  its  ritual  in  part  from  Asia 
Minor,  its  ethics  from  Judaea,  and  something  even 
more  important  from  Jesus  Christ  himself.  In  at- 
tempting to  unravel  these  factors  of  a  complex  whole, 
we  shall  therefore  first  have  to  try  to  catch  some  large 
proportions  of  the  remote  centuries,  —  the  seed  bed, 
the  soil,  the  atmosphere,  —  especially  in  the  matter 
of  the  relations  of  Jewish,  Greek,  and  Roman  civili- 
zation. To  do  this  it  will  be  necessary  to  look  at  the 
oldest  first,  and  therefore  to  take  a  glimpse  at  the 
early  stage  of  Jewish  national  life;  after  which  we 
can  turn  more  securely  to  the  Greeks  and  the  Latins. 


THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 


THE  HOLT  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

CHAPTER  I 

GREEK  AND  ROMAN  THOUGHT  BEFORE  CHRIST 

The  books  of  the  Old  Testament,  however  retro- 
spective they  may  be,  give  the  most  interesting  view 
that  is  to  be  found  in  any  one  collection  of  docu- 
ments of  a  people  emerging  from  pastoral  and  tribal 
conditions,  evolving  a  code  of  law,  developing  a  re- 
ligious ideal  and  creating  a  considerable  city  and 
state.  It  is  just  the  information  that  we  lack  con- 
cerning the  early  Greeks  and  the  early  Romans.  We 
first  see  the  Jews  a  people  of  nomads,  wandering  in 
the  great  triangle  bordered  by  Babylonia,  Syria, 
Egypt,  and  Arabia,  finally  conquering  an  abode  in 
Palestine,  in  contact  with  many  neighbours,  yet  pre- 
serving in  marked  degree  their  tribal  or  national  in- 
dividuality. In  what  did  this  individuality  consist? 

In  the  first  place,  a  geographical  condition  may 
be  noted.  Palestine  is  curiously  situated;  it  is  a  small 
country  bounded  by  the  desert  to  the  east  and  by 
the  Mediterranean  to  the  west.  The  Mediterranean 
here  has  few  and  bad  ports,  and  the  Jews  never  learnt 
to  be  seafarers;  the  desert  did  not  stimulate  inter- 
communication, that  is,  trade  routes.  In  Egypt, 
Babylonia,  Syria,  the  conditions  were  different;  these 
were  countries  framed  on  a  larger  scale,  with  great 


4  THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

waterways  and  irrigated  areas,  suited  to  develop  large 
centres  of  population  and  economic  activities.  Judaea 
possessed  little  to  attract  from  such  a  point  of  view; 
it  was  admirably  suited  to  a  pastoral  people,  whose 
tribes  were  with  reluctance  assuming  settled  habits 
and  agricultural  stability. 

It  was  after  their  conquest  of  Palestine  that  the 
highly  developed  intellectuality  of  the  Jews  becomes 
perceivable  in  terms  of  history.  At  a  very  remote 
period,  —  the  Jews  conquered  Palestine  between  the 
thirteenth  and  eleventh  century  before  Christ,  —  a 
Jewish  literature  sprang  up,  a  Hterature  that  con- 
tinued productive  until  the  first  century  a.d.  and  even 
later.  The  character  of  this  literature  can  best  be 
perceived  by  drawing  a  rough  comparison  between  it 
and  those  of  Rome  and  of  Greece.  The  period  over 
which  this  comparison  must  be  established  lies  be- 
tween a  date  not  far  short  of  1000  B.C.  and  the  year 
200  A.D.  Let  us  first  see  what  Rome  and  what  Greece 
accomplished  within  these  limits  of  time. 

One  thousand  years  before  Christ  the  city  of  Rome 
undoubtedly  existed;  yet  five  hundred  years  later 
she  was  barely  emerging  into  historical  view,  while 
it  was  not  until  the  third  century  before  Christ  that 
her  permanent  literature  first  took  shape  in  the  form 
of  historical  annals,  echoes  of  the  ancient  records  of 
the  great  families  of  the  city.  This  beginning  once 
made,  development  was  rapid,  and  was  largely  gov- 
erned by  the  fact  that  at  this  moment  Rome  was  fast 
stretching  out  over  the  gulfs,  islands  and  peninsulas 
of  the  Mediterranean.   She  came  into  contact  with 


ANCIENT  THOUGHT  BEFORE  CHRIST        5 

the  older  and  more  artistic  literature  of  Greece;  she 
lost  her  provincial  narrowness.  History  followed 
annals;  poetry,  not  primitive  but  ripe,  followed; 
satire,  drama,  oratory,  all  rapidly  blossomed  under 
Hellenic  influence,  —  and  almost  as  suddenly  faded 
away.  A  residue  of  historical  and  philosophical  writ- 
ing persisted,  yet  before  the  year  200  a.d.  Latin 
literature  had  produced  almost  all  its  important  work. 
But  the  language  was  stronger  on  its  non-literary  side, 
and  had  a  greater  destiny  yet  in  store,  for  it  had  become 
the  medium  of  an  imperial  law,  and  of  an  imperial 
system  of  administration;  and  as  the  oflScial  tongue 
of  the  Mediterranean  world  it  still  had  a  great  part  to 
play  in  the  politics  and  the  religion  of  mankind. 

The  Greeks  started  earlier  than  the  Romans.  The 
first  great  event  which  their  literature  has  recorded, 
the  capture  of  Troy,  occurred  very  possibly  at  much 
the  same  time  as  the  conquest  of  Palestine  by  the 
Jews.  The  Trojan  War  was  the  subject  of  the  epic 
poems  later  elaborated,  at  some  uncertain  date,  under 
the  names  of  the  "Iliad"  and  the  "Odyssey."  And 
nothing  can  serve  better  for  a  comparison  of  the 
Greek  with  the  Jewish  character  than  to  place  those 
corresponding  records,  the  book  of  Homer  and  the 
book  of  Joshua,  side  by  side.^  The  imaginative,  as- 
piring luminosity  of  the  one  contrasts  violently  with 
the  sombre  and  rancorous  jealousy  of  the  other.  They 

^  Even  if  the  book  of  Joshua  belongs  to  a  less  primitive  period 
than  its  position  in  the  Old  Testament  suggests,  an  allowance  of 
the  same  sort  must  be  made  in  Homer's  case,  and  the  comparison 
does  not  seem  too  strained. 


6  THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

serve  to  mark  the  profound  divergence  of  national 
feeling  between  two  races  and  two  modes  of  thought, 
from  a  starthng  combination  of  which  Christianity 
was  to  spring  many  centuries  later.  This  Grseco- 
Jewish  amalgam,  cast  into  a  Latin  mould,  was  to  prove 
the  toughest  of  all  the  material  out  of  which  the  mod- 
ern world  was  created. 

From  the  time  of  the  Homeric  poems  Greek  litera- 
ture developed  along  imaginative  and  rhetorical  lines. 
To  condense  its  achievements  into  a  brief  space  is 
almost  impossible;  but  the  ideas  to  insist  on  are  those 
of  beauty,  of  refinement,  of  a  luxurious  budding  of 
flowers  of  all  hues  and  all  shapes.  Drama,  history, 
poetry,  philosophy,  all  are  abundant,  subtle,  beauti- 
ful. But  for  our  present  purpose  let  us  detach  a  few 
features  of  special  interest.  In  the  first  place,  then, 
the  poetic  character  of  the  Greek  language  is  of  fund- 
amental importance.  And  poetic  is  here  meant  in 
the  broadest  possible  sense,  in  the  sense  of  language 
that  appeals  most  to  the  ear,  least  to  the  eye,  lan- 
guage full  of  harmonies  and  cadence,  and  delicate 
modulations  and  stress,  language  for  which  the  ear 
strains  and  the  mind  vibrates  with  refining  discrim- 
ination. It  was  that  quality  which  permeated  the 
whole,  which  gave  such  a  supreme  fragrance  to  the 
fleeting  moment  of  highest  development,  and  which 
became  a  source  of  weakness  the  instant  that  moment 
had  passed. 

The  fifth  and  fourth  centuries  before  Christ  were 
the  golden  age  of  Greece,  and  after  the  golden  age 
her  tongue,  together  with  those  fundamental  concep- 


ANCIENT  THOUGHT  BEFORE  CHRIST   7 

tions  of  life  which  had  been  evolved  with  it,  had 
become  the  fixed  medium,  the  unchanging  vehicle  of 
culture,  the  international  language  of  the  Asiatic  em- 
pires of  the  Greek  monarchs  who,  from  Alexander 
to  Kleopatra,  ruled  the  East  during  the  last  three 
centuries  before  Christ  (330-30  b.c). 

It  may  appear  an  exaggeration  to  single  out  in  a 
literature  so  versatile  and  so  prolific  any  single  branch 
as  deserving  greater  emphasis  than  the  others,  and 
yet  viewing  the  Greek  language  in  the  light  of  devel- 
opments that  occurj-ed  many  centuries  after  its  great 
epoch  was  past,  the  historian  may  be  allowed  to  dwell 
on  the  special  significance  of  Greek  philosophy.  His- 
torically speaking  it  is  here  that  Greek  literature  was 
greatest,  and  that  its  impress  was  stamped  deepest 
on  European  thought.  This  philosophy  will  have 
to  be  dealt  with  a  little  closely  when  we  come  to 
its  direct  contribution  to  Christianity;  for  what  lies 
before,  however,  the  subject  must  be  generalized 
briefly  and  roughly,  remembering  that  the  immediate 
object  is  nothing  more  tlian  to  establish  a  good 
angle  from  which  the  literature  of  the  Jews  can  be 
viewed. 

The  Greek,  then,  was  the  only  one  of  the  three 
great  languages  of  the  Mediterranean  to  produce  a 
philosophy  in  any  real  sense.  The  Romans  did  little 
more  than  copy  the  Greeks;  the  Jews  produced  none 
save  under  Greek  tutelage.  And  it  was  therefore  the 
Greek  intellectualism,  with  certain  Roman  and  Jew- 
ish elements  blended  into  it,  that  the  ancient  world 
bequeathed  to  the  mediaeval,  and  that  the  mediae- 


8  THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

val  world  imposed  on  the  modern.  That  forms  the 
foundation  of  culture  on  which  we  repose  at  the 
present  day,  a  foundation  which  most  of  those  who 
stop  to  consider  it  at  all  view  from  the  exclusive 
standpoint  of  aesthetics,  which  they  declare  to  be  the 
solid  rock  from  which  alone  the  higher  conceptions 
of  life  can  spring.  But  others,  looking  more  closely 
at  the  process  of  historical  evolution,  might  assert 
that  Greek  thought  penetrated  into  Europe  with  the 
fathers  of  Nicsea  and  not  with  the  men  of  the  Re- 
naissance, and  from  that  deduc^  consequences  of  a 
very  different  character. 

With  the  Greeks,  philosophy  appeared  very  early, 
almost  hand  in  hand  with  poetry.  At  first  it  was 
merely  the  effort  of  a  highly  endowed  race  to  under- 
stand the  phenomena  of  nature  and  to  state  them  in 
general  terms.  This  mode  of  thought  flourished  until 
about  the  end  of  the  fifth  century  before  Christ,  when 
it  rapidly  developed  and  crystallized  into  something 
more  definite  and  systematic.  Leaving  their  more  nat- 
uralistic and  tentative  modes  of  thought,  — to  which, 
curiously  enough,  we  are  now  tending  to  return,  — 
the  Greek  thinkers  attached  themselves  to  meta- 
physical doctrines  of  the  individual  and  the  universe, 
to  a  methodology  of  human  experience;  three  great 
stages  in  the  process  of  development,  being  marked 
by  Socrates,  Plato,  and  Aristotle  (425-322  B.C.). 
Socrates  may  stand  for  free  thought,  as  he  was  sent 
to  his  death  under  an  accusation  of  atheism;  Plato 
may  stand  for  the  imaginative,  the  poetic  concep- 
tions, that  the  Greek  mind,  with  him,  blended  into  its 


ANCIENT  THOUGHT  BEFORE  CHRIST   9 

philosophy;  Aristotle  is  the  codifier  who  fixed  Greek 
speculation  and  gave  all  subsequent  philosophy  an 
almost  inevitable  starting  point. 

To  view  the  Greek  language  and  thought,  for  in 
practice  the  two  are  not  separable,  as  voiced  by  Aris- 
totle, is  first  to  note  the  utter  disproportion  between 
their  splendidly  developed  resources,  unrivalled  with- 
in thousands  of  miles  east  or  west,  and  their  setting, 
that  of  little  city  states  like  Athens  and  Sparta.  The 
language  had  become  imperial,  yet  its  dominion  was 
still  parochial ;  the  time  was  ripe  for  breaking  out 
beyond  the  narrow  bounds  of  the  ^Egean  world  and 
for  establishing  its  intellectual  empire  over  humanity. 
And  this  was  what  Aristotle's  pupil,  the  great  Alexan- 
der, accomplished.  But  unfortunately  the  Greek  lan- 
guage was  ripe;  it  had  crystallized,  lost  its  early  fluid- 
ity and  vigour.  So  that  although  the  conquests  of 
Alexander  suddenly  carried  it  to  the  Indus  and  the 
Nile,  and  gave  Greek  domination  over  the  East,  there 
were  few  elements  of  growth  left  in  it,  and  those 
mostly  decadent  and  morbid,  as  will  appear  later. 
These  elements  of  decay  are  traceable  even  in  the 
work  of  Aristotle. 

Languages  in  their  youth  are  like  children,  ever 
discovering  new  words  and  new  ideas,  and  from  the 
new  words  building  up  new  ideas,  and  from  the  new 
ideas  seeking  for  new  words.  And  then  after  a  while 
the  process  ceases;  the  words  and  the  ideas  have 
reached  their  limit,  and  have  become  closely  fitted 
to  one  another.  In  other  terms,  national  thought  is 
clothed  with  a  set  of  word  formulas  beyond  which  it 


10  THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

finds  it  well-nigh  impossible  to  proceed.  With  ideas 
and  words  belonging  to  such  material  objects  as  a 
shoe,  a  nail,  a  chair,  there  arises  no  particular  diflfi- 
culty.  If  under  an  economic  spur  civilization  devel- 
ops greater  material  complexity,  almost  any  lan- 
guage, even  a  decayed  or  debased  one,  is  capable  of 
the  effort  of  coining  the  necessary  new  word  that 
conveys  the  idea  of  the  new  object;  Archimedes  in- 
vents the  screw,  and  the  new  word  is  inevitably 
found.  But  there  are  words  which  convey  abstract 
ideas,  words  which  the  Greeks  succeeded  in  coining, 
and  which  when  once  coined  tend  to  fix  ideas  and  to 
render  it  difficult  to  add  to  or  subtract  from  them. 
Space,  beauty,  time,  truth,  justice,  being,  —  are  such 
words,  and  it  was  with  them  and  similar  idea  formulas 
that  Aristotle  reduced  the  Greek  philosophy  to  a  sys- 
tem, static  in  its  definition,  and  stamped  that  system 
on  European  thought. 

A  great  effort  to  systematize  ideas  coinciding  with 
the  moment  at  which  a  highly  intellectual  race  had 
fully  developed  a  wonderful  language,  could  only  re- 
sult, as  it  did,  in  making  of  these  word  ideas  as  nearly 
as  possible  an  absolute  and  immutable  foundation  of 
thought.  It  is  true  that  Aristotle  had  a  grasp  of  the 
evolutionary  doctrine,  yet  it  found  but  slight  expres- 
sion in  his  works,  and  his  followers  soon  established 
fixed  values  for  such  abstractions  as  truth,  justice, 
beauty.  It  hardly  seems  necessary  at  the  present 
day  to  point  out  how  completely  this  distorts  every 
view  of  life;  yet  for  the  sake  of  clearness  let  us  take  a 
single  peep  at  the  fundamental  fallacy,  as  it  may  be 


ANCIENT  THOUGHT  BEFORE  CHRIST     11 

demonstrated  with  beauty,  beauty  in  nature,  beauty 
in  art. 

Beauty  has  a  shifting  value  and  not  a  fixed  quan- 
tity. Imagine  the  most  perfect  of  lovely  sunsets.  You 
exclaim  that  this  represents  the  most  transcendent 
beauty  of  nature.  But  let  us  say  that  nature  per- 
forms a  miracle,  does  the  impossible,  and  repeats  this 
same  sunset,  night  after  night,  week  after  week,  month 
after  month .  Is  that  sunset,  unchanging  and  so  often  re- 
peated, so  supremely  beautiful  as  that  other  one  which 
your  imagination  has  now  begun  to  long  for,  with  just 
that  little  alteration  in  the  hues,  or  in  the  streaking  of 
the  clouds,  that  will  give  you  the  tinge  of  surprise,  of 
change,  of  novelty  .^^  In  other  words,  is  beauty  a  fixed 
value,  or  a  complex,  shifting  one.^  Convert  this  into 
terms  of  art.  Does  generation  after  generation  adore 
Rafael  and  neglect  Botticelli;  adore  Botticelli  and  neg- 
lect Velasquez ;  adore  Velasquez  and  neglect  Whistler  .^^ 
The  same  condition  applies  here  as  with  Nature's 
masterpieces,  and  beauty  again  escapes  our  power  of 
absolute  definition.  So  it  is  with  justice,  truth,  being, 
and  other  abstract  ideas.  And  there  is  the  point 
where  Greek  philosophy  failed,  and  that  has  only  of 
late  been  grasped,  hesitatingly  by  the  relativist  and 
evolutionist  thinkers,  more  firmly  still  by  the  ad- 
vanced philosophers  of  our  own  day. 

After  Aristotle,  Greek  philosophy  branches  into 
two  well-marked  channels.  Along  one  of  them  suc- 
cessive schools  ring  the  changes  on  the  Aristotelian 
formulas,  becoming  slowly  but  surely  mere  jugglers 
in  words;  so  that  three  hundred  years  later,  when 


12  THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

Jesus  was  born  and  Alexandria  had  become  the  lead- 
ing Greek  city,  her  philosophers  were  chiefly  con- 
cerned with  verbal  interpretations  and  the  clothing 
of  words  in  allegorical  raiment,  with  hair-splitting 
distinctions  and  threadbare  differences.  This  is  per- 
haps somewhat  overstating  the  case,  but  there  will 
be  occasion  to  look  into  the  matter  more  closely  a 
little  later. 

Along  the  other  and  better  channel  Greek  philo- 
sophy began  to  concern  itself  with  life,  and  in  an  age 
in  which  very  ancient  social  and  political  customs 
were  rapidly  crumbling  away,  soon  flew  violently  to 
extreme  doctrines,  of  austerity  with  the  Stoics  and  of 
indulgence  with  the  Epicureans. 

This  decadent  epoch,  between  the  death  of  Aris- 
totle and  the  birth  of  Jesus,  was  marked  by  the  con- 
quest of  the  East  by  Alexander,  and  by  the  founding 
of  the  great  Greek  monarchies  which,  after  his  death, 
controlled  Macedonia,  Asia  Minor,  Babylonia,  Persia, 
Syria,  Palestine,  and  Egypt.  Over  this  vast  stretch 
the  Greek  language  triumphed;  its  classic  tragedies 
were  played  in  the  valley  of  the  Indus;  its  rhetoric 
penetrated  to  Italy,  whence  Rome  was  soon  to 
stretch  her  hand  out  over  the  East.  Greek  became 
the  language  of  universal  culture,  to  remain  so  al- 
most to  our  own  day;  while  her  philosophy  was  to 
throw  off  some  late  shoots  in  Asia  and  Egypt,  that 
were  to  flower  with  a  new  religion. 


CHAPTER  II 

BEFORE  THE  CAPTIVITY  OF  BABYLON 

What  were  the  conditions  of  Jewish  thought  while 
Rome  and  Greece  were  developing  along  the  lines 
just  indicated?  Very  different,  and  very  peculiar:  in 
its  greater  antiquity;  in  its  almost  exclusively  relig- 
ious character;  in  its  narrowness ;  and  in  its  inspiration. 

The  antiquity  of  Jewish  thought  in  its  literary  ex- 
pression affords  a  priceless  view  of  the  early  stages 
of  Jewish  history.  Had  we  anything  so  ancient  con- 
cerning the  Greeks,  we  should  know  all  that  we  can 
now  only  conjecture  about  the  wanderings  of  these 
Pelasgian  tribes  in  the  Danubian  countries,  their  push 
through  the  Balkans  to  the  iEgean  Sea,  their  develop- 
ment into  city  states.  All  this  is  a  blank  in  Greek 
history,  while  the  corresponding  phase  of  Jewish  his- 
tory is  to  some  extent  revealed.  We  see  the  patri- 
archal tribes  in  the  nomadic  state,  drifting  like  the 
desert  sand  into  Egypt,  where  doubtless  they  took 
on  more  settled  habits  and  acquired  something  of 
Egyptian  ideas  and  customs;  then,  under  the  spur  of 
harsh  treatment,  dashing  back  into  the  desert  again, 
and  after  another  period  of  nomadic  life  striking  at 
Palestine  for  a  permanent  settlement.  It  was  after 
this  settlement  that  their  literature  came  into  exist- 
ence under  the  guise  of  the  first  books  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament. 


14  THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

Of  the  Old  Testament  as  a  whole  the  following  gen- 
eral statements  may  be  advanced.  The  books  of  the 
Pentateuch,  or  of  Moses,  make  up  the  early  stage  of 
the  Jewish  literature,  of  which  the  date  stretches  back 
uncertainly  as  far  as  and  perhaps  beyond  800  B.C. 
Then  followed,  over  about  three  centuries,  the  mass 
of  the  historical  and  prophetic  books,  Nehemiah 
slightly  antedating  Plato.  Additions  to  these  books 
were  made  from  the  sixth  to  the  third  century,  when 
the  accepted  Hebrew  canon  of  the  Old  Testament 
was  becoming  fixed.  Yet  Jewish  literature  continued 
to  flourish,  though  past  its  golden  age.  Prophetic 
writing  continued,  the  ecclesiastical  code  known  as 
the  Talmud  gradually  came  into  existence  from  the 
first  century  B.C.,  and  alongside  of  this  direct  continu- 
ation of  the  older  movement,  more  imaginative  writ- 
ing appeared.  And  the  conquest  of  Asia  by  the  Greeks 
introduced  a  new  and  powerful  influence. 

Controversies  have  long  raged  over  the  early  Jew- 
ish writings,  but  here  they  must  be  as  far  as  possible 
avoided.  Whether  Moses  did  or  did  not  write  any 
part  of  the  Pentateuch,  whether  its  date  is  nearer  800 
or  1300  B.C.,  whether  the  Levitical  law  was  or  was 
not  the  foundation  of  these  books,  may  be  left  to 
Biblical  specialists  to  decide;  here  the  question  must 
rather  be,  what  is  there  in  the  Pentateuch  and  in  the 
Prophetic  writings  peculiar  to  the  Jews,  and  what  is 
there  in  them  merely  characteristic  of  an  early  stage 
of  civilization?  Of  these  two  questions  it  will  be  easier 
to  begin  by  dealing  with  the  latter. 

Like  the  religion  of  Greece  and  of  Rome,  that  of  the 


BEFORE  THE  CAPTIVITY  OF  BABYLON      15 

Jews  rests  on  a  foundation  of  primitive  beliefs  and 
nature  cults  almost  universal  among  men.  Notwith- 
standing the  opposite  views  of  the  writers  of  the  Jew- 
ish sacred  books,  their  pages  contain  the  involuntary 
record  of  such  things.  Scholars  have  traced  these 
primitive  features  in  numerous  details,  and  all  that 
need  be  said  here  is  that  behind  the  gradually  formed 
conception  of  the  single  invisible  deity  Jehovah  there 
was  a  vast  background  of  primitive  nature  worship, 
that  shaded  insensibly  into  the  Semitic  cults  that 
surrounded  the  Jewish  Jehovah  with  a  pagan  atmo- 
sphere as  long  as  the  Jews  subsisted  in  Palestine. 
Again,  we  have  a  characteristically  primitive  idea, 
^  to  be  found  in  all  early  religions,  in  the  anthropomor- 
phic character  of  the  Jewish  God.  His  lengthy  con- 
versations with  Adam  or  with  Moses,  his  naively  hu- 
man motives,  are  as  unconvincing  of  divinity  to  the 
modern  mind  as  the  quaint  representations  imagined 
by  early  Italian  or  Flemish  artists.  A  comparison  of 
the  anthropomorphism  of  the  Jews  with  that  of  the 
Greeks  will  throw  light  on  the  whole  subject.  The 
Greek  gods  are  also  naively  human,  peculiarly  so  in 
their  frailty.  But  as  Greek  literature  moves  from  its 
primitive  to  its  ripe  epoch  they  become  idealized  in 
terms  of  imaginative  poetry,  of  romance,  of  rhetorical 
beauty,  while  the  religious  emotions  of  the  high  in- 
tellectual classes,  unsatisfied  with  this  glut  of  sesthet- 
icism,  turn  away  from  it  towards  the  abstract  con- 
ceptions of  the  Platonic  and  Aristotelian  philosophy, 
or  seek  to  frame  a  rule  of  life  according  to  the  formu- 
las of  Zeno  or  Epicurus.  With  the  Jews  something 


16  THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

quite  different  occurred.  Such  imaginative  quality  as 
their  language  possessed  was  kept  strictly  within  the 
bounds  of  religion.  And  this  was  due  not  only  to  the 
peculiarly  rigid  character  of  the  language,  but  also  to 
the  fact  that  its  literary  use  was  highly  restricted. 
To  understand  this,  one  must  picture  the  occupation 
of  Palestine  by  the  Jews  a  little  closely.  At  the  time 
of  the  Jewish  Conquest  there  was  already  in  Pales- 
tine a  settled  population,  closely  akin  in  race,  that 
was  exterminated  only  in  part,  —  the  Jebusites  and 
others.  They  had  civilized  habits,  even  considerable 
cities,  like  Jerusalem.  The  Jews  came  among  them 
as  conquerors,  and  the  tribes  divided  the  country  into 
tracts  for  occupation.  They  then  entered  what  was 
apparently  a  semi-pastoral,  semi-city  state;  at  all 
events  it  is  clear  that  a  good  many  Jews  took  up 
their  abode  in  the  city  of  Jerusalem  with  the  Jebu- 
sites: "As  for  the  Jebusites,  the  inhabitants  of  Jeru- 
salem, the  children  of  Judah  could  not  drive  them 
out:  but  the  Jebusites  dwell  with  the  children  of 
Judah  at  Jerusalem  unto  this  day."  (Joshua  xv,  63.) 
Now  among  these  warrior-pastoral  tribes,  only 
just  beginning  to  turn  towards  city  life  and  condi- 
tions, there  was  one  disrupted  tribe,  and  in  that  tribe 
one  family,  the  tribe  of  Levi  and  family  of  Aaron, 
that  stood  in  a  peculiar  situation.  According  to  the 
Jewish  legends,  at  the  time  of  their  flight  from  Egypt, 
—  a  diflScult  crisis,  —  the  tribes  were  driven,  by  force 
of  circumstances  and  by  their  leaders,  towards  a 
more  national  organization.  Moses,  of  the  tribe  of 
Levi,  became  chief  of  the  combined  tribes;  he  central- 


BEFORE  THE  CAPTIVITY  OF  BABYLON      17 

ized  a  new  religious  organization  in  the  hands  of  his 
brother  Aaron,  making  the  High  Priesthood  hered- 
itary in  his  family;  and  when  Palestine  was  reached, 
the  Levites,  instead  of  obtaining  a  tribal  tract,  were 
scattered  among  the  cities,  and  were  specially  marked 
off  for  the  priesthood,  a  very  acute  move  of  theocratic 
and  centralizing  statesmanship.  Even  allowing  for  the 
fact  that  the  Biblical  account  of  these  matters  is 
in  large  part  retrospective,  it  may  be  fairly  said  that 
one  tribe  showed  peculiar  development,  towards 
religion,  towards  city  life,  towards  intellectualism; 
and  that  tribe  acquired,  perhaps  from  the  seventh 
century,  the  mission  of  leading  the  others  on  the 
road  of  homogeneous  nationalism  under  the  banner 
of  religion.  It  was  from  this,  in  large  measure,  that 
the  second  period  of  Jewish  literature,  that  of  the 
great  prophetical  books,  derived  its  character.  And 
with  prophetism  we  are  brought  face  to  face  with  the 
question  of  inspiration  and  particularly  of  the  mir- 
aculous, a  question  it  will  be  necessary  to  consider 
before  proceeding  further. 

It  is  possible  to  distinguish  several  broad  currents 
of  opinion  in  the  matter  of  miracles,  —  using  the 
word  in  the  plain  dictionary  sense.  And  it  is  almost 
needless  to  point  out  that  the  most  widespread  was 
this,  that  the  miracles  of  Jesus  were  the  fundamental 
proof  of  his  divinity.  A  rationalizing  age,  the  eight- 
eenth century,  concentrated  its  attack  on  this  point, 
arguing  about  this  central  proposition,  that  if  the 
miracle  is  within  human  experience,  then  it  is  within 
human  means,  or  that  the  evidence  for  the  impossi- 


18  THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

ble  is  less  credible  than  the  credulity  and  consequent 
error  of  its  reporter.  But  as  Europe  emerged  from 
the  throes  of  the  French  Revolution  into  the  nine- 
teenth century,  as  a  wave  of  religious  revival  and 
the  study  of  history  progressed  side  by  side,  the 
question  gradually  got  itself  restated  in  somewhat 
broader  terms.  The  more  the  Bible  and  profane  his- 
tory were  explored,  the  more  it  became  clear  that 
miracles  were  not  peculiar  to  Jesus,  were  not  even 
peculiar  to  Christianity,  or  to  any  country,  or  age; 
they  belonged  to  all  ages  from  the  most  remote  to  the 
present,  and  to  certain  forms  of  Buddhism  or  Mo- 
hammedanism just  as  they  did  to  Christianity;  they 
represented  in  fact  a  variety  of  universal  histori- 
cal statement  or  psychological  experience.  And  the 
opponents  of  Christianity  shifted  their  ground  ac- 
cordingly, and  now  said,  and  to-day  still  say:  if 
Aaron,  and  Paul,  and  St.  Francis,  and  if  Buddha  and 
Mohammed,  and  if  Indian  jugglers,  and  Mormon 
elders,  and  Mrs.  Eddy,  and  Notre  Dame  de  Lourdes 
have  performed  miracles,  then  the  miracles  of  Jesus 
are  not  otherwise  significant.  Or  else  they  deny  the 
miraculous  in  toto.  But  even  these  lines  of  thought 
are  not  wholly  profitable,  are  fit  only  for  argumenta- 
tors,  not  for  those  whose  sole  desire  is  to  see  reality 
at  the  closest  quarters  possible.  That  is  the  effort 
that  must  now  be  made. 

The  quite  real  diflSculty,  the  elusiveness  of  mira- 
cles, that  is  of  incidents  contrary  to  normal  experi- 
ence, depends  partly  on  the  extremely  doubtful  char- 
acter of  the  evidence  one  has  to  deal  with,  on  the 


BEFORE  THE  CAPTIVITY  OF  BABYLON      19 

constant  factor  of  legend  and  credulity,  and  partly  on 
the  extremely  variable  psychology  of  those  acted  on 
by  the  miracle,  whether  directly  as  participants,  or  in- 
directly through  tradition.  On  the  question  of  cred- 
ibility what  is  clear  to  all  who  have  dealt  with  his- 
torical evidence,  is  that  the  proof  for  the  great  mass 
of  recorded  miracles  is,  on  the  face  of  it,  absolutely 
inadequate  to  sustain  them.  Some  are  purely  mythi- 
cal. Others  evidently  refer  to  feats  of  common  jug- 
glery, well  known  through  all  the  ages.  Some  are 
merely  pious  exaggerations  or  distortions.  Some  are 
legends  that  scholarship  can  attach  to  a  basis  of  folk- 
lore. A  great  part  of  the  Jewish  mythology  was  of 
foreign  origin,  mostly  Babylonian;  thus  its  account 
of  the  flood  is  an  international  myth,  very  probably 
based,  so  far  as  the  Jews  were  concerned,  on  some 
actual,  but  very  remote  occurrence,  in  the  valley  of 
the  Euphrates.  Searching  in  another  direction  we 
find  miracles  merging  into  well-defined  jugglery,  — 
as  in  the  legendary  account  of  Aaron  casting  down 
the  rod  that  turns  into  a  serpent,  to  which  the  Egyp- 
tian magicians  reply  by  performing  the  same  trick. 
How  far  trickery  may,  in  some  cases,  be  taken  as  a 
line  of  explanation,  it  is  impossible  to  determine.  The 
evidence  on  which  the  Biblical  incidents  repose  is  far 
too  slight  and  unprecise  to  admit  of  trenchant  decis- 
ions. Yet  it  is  abundantly  clear  that  from  a  remote 
epoch  the  Country  between  India  and  the  Mediter- 
ranean has  produced,  and  is  still  producing,  a  class 
of  men  ranging  from  the  common  fakir  who  for  a  few 
coins  will  make  the  mango  grow  and  the  cobra  dance. 


20  THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

to  the  ascetic  in  whom  the  fakir  almost,  perhaps  en- 
tirely, merges  into  an  individual  of  abnormal  self- 
concentration,  developed  intuitions,  and  extraor- 
dinary powers  of  suggestion.  His  tricks,  not  to  call 
them  miracles,  are  in  a  way  legitimate  demonstra- 
tions of  abnormal  powers ;  and  if  they  baffle  the  crit- 
ical observations  of  present-day  observers,  how  much 
more  must  they  have  impressed  those  of  remote  and 
less  sophisticated  ages. 

It  is  at  this  point,  however,  that  the  miraculous 
deserves  serious  attention.  To  whatever  extent  we 
may  sweep  away  the  marvels  of  the  sacred  books  and 
of  later  ages,  as  jugglery  or  as  legend,  as  folklore  or 
as  pure  deception,  no  reasonable  person  can  doubt 
that  a  residuum  is  left,  just  as  no  reasonable  person 
can  doubt  that  at  the  present  day  many  of  the  facts 
of  what  we  call  abnormal  psychology  transcend  the 
range  of  accepted  human  experience.  In  other  words, 
the  expression  miraculous,  used  reasonably,  is  to  be 
placed  in  connection  with  phenomena  of  abnormal 
psychology,  and  this  takes  us  directly  back  to  pro- 
phetism  and  religious  inspiration. 

The  psychological  interpretation  of  man  tends  at 
the  present  day  to  become  less  sharply  individual 
than  in  preceding  centuries  during  which  the  doc- 
trine of  the  resurrection  of  the  body  prevailed  in  its 
most  rigid  form.  Even  to-day  an  exaggerated  idea 
of  the  unity  and  isolation  of  the  individual  prevails 
in  the  Western  world.  Yet  in  the  purely  physical 
sense  it  is  clear  enough  that  the  body  is  but  a  continu- 
ous and  changing  collection  of  matter,  held  together 


BEFORE  THE  CAPTIVITY  OF  BABYLON      21 

by  a  fleeting  and  mysterious  individualism.   May  we 
not  imagine  something  rather  similar  as  to  what  nfay 
be  called  the  ethereal  nature  of  man,  —  a  constant 
flowing  in  and  flowing  out  to  this  individual  centre 
of  that  imponderable  ether,  which  science  will  per- 
haps soon  link  with  ponderable  matter  in  a  single 
formula?  If  so,  what  do  we  get  as  a  result?  That 
man  is  bound  to  man  by  subtle  layers  of  all-pervasive 
ether,  which  actually  whirls  into  matter  within  him 
and  within  his  neighbour,  which  may  accord  two 
brains  thousands   of  miles   apart  to  instantaneous 
flashes  of  identical  thought,  and  which  may  mould 
the  emotions  of  a  large  gathering  to  curious  harmo- 
nies. The  eye  may  play  a  part  as  yet  unsuspected  in 
the  human  machine,  and  is,  at  all  events,  the  organ 
that  comes  most  obviously  into  play  in  those  condi- 
tions of  concentration  that  induce  suggestion,  —  the 
keying  of  two  minds.   Concentration  and  introspec- 
tion, meditation  and  fasting  and  prayer,  the  suggest- 
ing and  the  suggestible  condition,  religious   emotion 
and  religious  inspiration,  these  were  the  conditions 
that  might  produce  the  miracle  in  a  suitable  surround- 
ing, and  that  helped  to  produce  the  long  line  of  Jew- 
ish prophets. 

And  it  is  the  prophets  that  placed  a  distinctive 
mark  on  the  Jewish  literature  of  the  golden  age. 
While  Greece  developed  her  splendid  drama,  her 
poetry  and  her  philosophy,  and  Athens  fought  Sparta 
for  the  dominion  of  the  Aegean  Sea,  the  Jews  went 
through  vicissitudes  that  might  have  overwhelmed 
them  as  a  nation  had  not  the  Levitical  priesthood 


22  THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

and  tradition  stood  firm.  From  their  entry  into  Pales- 
tine as  desert  tribes  until  the  year  586,  —  the  epoch 
of  Solon's  legislation  at  Athens,  —  the  Jews  gradu- 
ally lost  their  tribal  organization  and  nomad  pro- 
pensities. They  formed  kingdoms,  —  that  of  Solomon, 
about  the  year  1000,  extending  for  a  brief  period  over 
all  the  Jews  and  many  subject  people;  they  became 
agriculturists  and  city  people;  and  they  had  short 
spells  of  national  success.  Yet  on  the  whole  they 
failed,  from  lack  of  numbers,  from  lack  of  cohesion, 
and  from  lack  of  topographical  advantages.  Their 
country  was  open,  and  had  powerful  neighbours 
north,  south  and  east,  who  periodically  invaded  it; 
the  original  population  of  Palestine  was  great  in 
numbers,  and  such  fusion  as  took  place  was  slow;  the 
only  element  of  cohesion,  save  for  the  temporary 
successes  of  the  monarchy,  lay  in  the  Jewish  relig- 
ious caste,  the  priests  of  Levi,  their  tradition  and 
their  preaching.  Finally,  in  586,  came  what  ap- 
peared to  be  a  final  catastrophe.  Jerusalem  and 
its  Temple  were  overthrown,  its  inhabitants  were 
reduced  to  slavery  and  driven  to  the  Babylonian 
captivity. 

There  are  few  things  in  human  history  more  extra- 
ordinary than  the  tenacity,  the  alternation  of  dog- 
gedness  and  blazing  fury,  with  which  the  Levitical 
caste  clung  to  its  high  faith  during  these  struggles. 
Not  that  that  faith  remained  a  constant  throughout. 
Like  all  human  beliefs  and  institutions  it  went 
through  a  well  defined  evolution.  Yet  certain  funda- 
mental characteristics  remained.  The  God  of  Israel 


BEFORE  THE  CAPTIVITY  OF  BABYLON      23 

was  their  sole  god,  and  though  some  of  the  neighbour- 
ing gods,  Baal  or  Melkart,  approached  this  isolation, 
yet  the  Levite  faith  was  more  markedly  monotheistic 
than  any  other.  Jehovah  was  not  only  exclusively 
Jewish,  not  interested  in,  or  hostile  to  any  other  nation, 
but  he  was  exclusively  god,  — a  jealous  and  narrow 
god,  the  god  of  the  desert  tribes,  ever  ready  to  smite. 
As  was  the  case  in  other  Semite  cults,  the  god  also 
concerned  himself,  from  very  early  times,  with  leg- 
islation, and  gave  to  that  legislation  an  ethical  or  re- 
ligious turn.  But  all  the  efforts  of  the  Levites  were 
needed  to  draw  the  mass  of  the  Jews  from  their 
primitive  nature  cults  and  to  keep  them  from  the 
Semitic  gods  of  Palestine.  For  century  after  cen- 
tury the  priesthood  struggled  in  vain  to  hold  the 
nation  to  the  call  of  Jehovah.  The  cult  of  Baal  and 
Moloch,  of  Tammuz  and  of  other  deities  more  com- 
fortable than  Jehovah,  could  not  be  repressed.  At  no 
time  before  586  does  it  appear  that  the  Jews  accepted 
the  exclusive  cult  of  Jehovah  with  any  unanimity,  un- 
less Solomon  succeeded  in  imposing  it  during  his  reign. 
On  the  contrary,  the  cult  of  Jehovah  survived  only  af- 
ter a  terrible  struggle.  The  Temple  of  Jerusalem  was 
overthrown;  more  than  once  kings  or  queens  intro- 
duced strange  gods ;  the  Jewish  priests  were  dispos- 
sessed and  driven  into  obscurity.  Yet  through  all 
these  vicissitudes  they  clung  defiantly  to  their  faith. 
And  their  eventual  triumph  was  due  to  the  fact  that 
their  religious  books  were  the  only  national  litera- 
ture, that  they  were  persistent,  and  that  at  intervals 
they  produced  individuals  possessed  with  inspiration 


24  THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

who  prophesied  and  awoke  the  echoes  of  individual 
and  national  conscience. 

From  Moses  to  Mohammed,  a  space  of  two  thou- 
sand years,  from  Mohammed  to  the  Mahdi,  a  space 
of  thirteen  hundred  more,  the  Semitic  race,  centred 
on  Arabia,  has  produced  individuals  of  the  prophetic 
type,  some  reputed  true,  others  false,  one  shading 
into  the  other  by  subtle  and  elusive  gradations. 
Among  these  prophets,  those  of  the  Bible,  from  the 
legendary  Moses  down  to  Paul,  form  a  well-defined 
group,  knit  together  by  the  strong  tradition  of  the 
Jewish  faith  and  literature.  And  yet  Paul  cannot  be 
thought  of  in  the  same  terms  as  Moses,  for  Paul  came 
later,  into  changed  conditions;  and  it  is  with  the  others 
as  with  Paul,  they  belong  to  diverse  epochs,  diverse 
circumstances,  and  so  act  diversely.  Their  categories 
may  be  chronologically  stated  as  follows :  (1)  the  early 
prophets,  judges  and  kings  of  remote  or  legendary 
times;  (2)  the  prophets  whose  writings  have  been  di- 
rectly preserved  from  about  800  to  586  B.C.  ;  (3)  the 
prophets  of  the  post-captivity  period;  (4)  Jesus;  (5) 
Paul. 

The  prophets  of  the  second  period,  —  and  the  great- 
est were  Isaiah  and  Jeremiah,  —  represent  the  culmina- 
tion of  all  the  previous  efforts  of  the  race.  On  the  posi- 
tive side  they  have  the  intensity,  inspiration,  devotion 
and  wrath  with  which  they  surround  the  cult  of  Je- 
hovah. At  times,  especially  with  Jeremiah,  the  con- 
centration and  directness  of  their  language  is  touched 
with  metaphor,  and  rises  to  a  great  height:  "Oh 
that  my  head  were  waters,  and  mine  eyes  a  fountain 


BEFORE  THE  CAPTIVITY  OF  BABYLON      25 

of  tears,  that  I  might  weep  day  and  night  for  the  slain 
of  the  daughter  of  my  people !  .  .  .  Judah  mourneth, 
and  the  gates  thereof  languish;  they  are  black  unto 
the  ground;  and  the  cry  of  Jerusalem  is  gone  up." 
They  struggle  for  an  ethical  conception  of  life.  They 
have  visions  of  a  happier  day  when  Judah  and  Israel 
shall  rise  again  under  the  protection  of  Jehovah.  They 
prophesy  a  Jewish  king  who  should  revive  the  mon- 
archy of  David  and  Solomon,  a  prophecy  constantly 
misapplied  in  later  times  to  Jesus,  and  that  in  point  of 
fact  only  John  Maccabseus,  or  Ezra,  came  near  realiz- 
ing. On  the  negative  side  may  be  noted  the  intensely 
national  character  of  their  deity,  a  god  of  wrath  as 
he  was  many  centuries  before  in  the  desert,  preoccu- 
pied solely  with  the  interests  of  his  chosen  people. 
And  it  is  in  that  particular  that  the  greatest  change 
was  preparing.  Let  us  leave  Jeremiah  heaping  ashes 
on  his  head  and  invectives  on  his  people,  as  he  sat  mid 
the  ruins  of  the  gates  of  Jerusalem,  and  turn  to  Baby- 
lon, where  the  captive  Jews  were  learning  the  lessons 
of  adversity  and  also  enlarging  their  point  of  view. 
For  the  epoch  of  narrow  tribalism  had  been  brought  to 
a  close  by  their  catastrophe,  and  that  of  nationalism, 
even  of  internationalism  or  humanity,  was  dawning. 


CHAPTER  III 

FROM   THE   CAPTIVITY   TO   CHRIST 

The  era  of  the  Babylonian  Captivity  is  a  conven- 
ient one  for  surveying  the  general  progress  of  the 
world.  In  the  Mediterranean  the  small  city  states 
of  the  Hellenes  were  formed  and  already  rising  to 
prosperity.  Italy  as  yet  showed  little  beyond  semi- 
tribal  states  with  a  tinge  of  Greek  colonization,  speak- 
ing dialects  not  destined  to  survive;  Roman  history 
had  not  begun.  Egypt  remained  stagnant,  as  for 
many  centuries  before,  more  or  less  concentrated 
along  the  banks  of  the  Nile,  dense,  civilized,  but  local 
and  non-expansive.  It  was  to  the  east,  along  the 
three  great  rivers  of  southwestern  Asia  that  civiliza- 
tion was  painfully  dragging  its  feet  furthest  along  the 
thorny  path  of  progress.  In  the  valleys  of  the  Eu- 
phrates, of  the  Indus,  and  of  the  Ganges,  man  was 
learning  to  build  empires  and  to  found  creeds,  to 
break  down  national  barriers,  to  preach  larger  doc- 
trines, to  perceive  wider  horizons. 

A  few  dates  will  serve  for  an  outline.  In  the 
valley  of  the  Euphrates  for  many  centuries  two  Se- 
mitic states  had  struggled  for  supremacy.  Babylonia 
and  Assyria.  For  considerable  periods  one  or  the 
other  asserted  its  supremacy;  yet  for  the  purpose 
of  the  present  generalization  it  will  not  be  unfair  to 
say  that  it  is  only  from  the  time  of  Sargon,  who  was 


FROM  THE  CAPTIVITY  TO^  CHRIST        27 

king  of  Assyria  from  B.C.  722  to  705,  that  the  tend- 
ency towards  the  formation  of  a  great  Euphratic 
empire  becomes  clear.  From  722  to  538,  the  world 
witnessed   tremendous   struggles   between   the   two 
states  in  which  eventually  the  neighbouring  Aryan 
races  of  the  Persian  plateau  became  involved;  until 
finally  the  conquest  of  Babylon  by  the  Persian  king 
Cyrus  marked  the  end  of  the  Semitic  kingdoms  and 
the  successful  establishment  of  the  Persian  Empire. 
This  huge  monarchy  rapidly  stretched  itself  out  from 
the  Caspian  Sea  to  the  high  waters  of  the  Nile,  and  from 
the  Greek  cities  of  Ionia  to  the  valley  of  the  Indus. 
The  effect  of  the  establishment  of  the  Persian  mon- 
archy has  not  been  sufiiciently  emphasized  in  his- 
tory. It  is  the  obvious  defect  of  our  histories  of  an- 
cient times,  in  part  arising  from  necessity,  that  they 
are  based  on  literary  studies.   If  Greek  is  the  greatest 
of  ancient  languages,  and  Thucydides  the  greatest  of 
Greek  historians,  then  the  incidents  that  Thucydides 
wrote  about  are  magnified  into  the  central  aspect  of 
ancient  history;  the  distortion  is  now  obvious  enough 
and  ridiculous.  Ancient  history  should  not  concern 
itself  about  the  petty  struggles  of  the  Greek  cities 
until  it  has  at  least  attempted  to  measure  events  to 
the  scale  of  the  great  sixth  and  fourth  centuries,  of 
the  great  Persian  and  Greek  empires;  that  done,  the 
rest  will  readily  fall  into  its  proper  place  and  become 
vastly    more    intelligible.   Unfortunately,    however, 
Persia  produced  no  Thucydides,  and  although  arch- 
aeology has  in  slight  measure  filled  the  gap,  yet  it 
must  be  largely  a  matter  of  historical  inference  to 


28  THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

estimate  the  work  accomplished  by  the  monarchy  of 
Cyrus,  Darius,  and  Artaxerxes. 

There  was  a  religious  work.  The  Persian  cults  be- 
came more  or  less  dominant  among  the  higher  classes 
of  the  valley  of  the  Euphrates,  where  hitherto  the 
Semitic  deities  had  formed  a  Pantheon  curiously 
blending  astronomical  science  with  nature  worship. 
In  some  respects  the  local  religion  prevailed:  "The 
Semitic  astrology,  the  monstrous  offspring  of  long- 
continued  scientific  observations,  became  superim- 
posed on  the  nature  myths  of  the  Persians."  ^  At  the 
close  of  the  preceding  century  Persia,  then  only  a  hill 
state  beyond  the  Median  borders,  had  witnessed  a 
great  religious  movement.  Zoroaster,  a  dim  figure 
that  some  scholars  have  recently  attempted  to  date 
as  far  down  as  the  close  of  the  seventh  century,^  had 
organized  and  stimulated  the  ancient  Persian  beliefs. 
Legend  had  rapidly  formed  about  his  career  on  ortho- 
dox mythological  lines,  and  ascribed  his  miraculous 
birth  to  a  Virgin  mother.  At  thirty  he  had  begun  his 
ministry,  and  at  the  very  outset  was  tempted  by  de- 
mons who  offered  him  a  kingdom  to  renounce  his  faith. 
Piercing  behind  these  characteristic  legends,  for  which 
parallels  in  the  lives  of  Buddha  and  Jesus  will  readily 
be  found,  we  can  dimly  discern  in  Zoroaster  a  great 
religious  organizer,  a  figure  part  legendary,  and  cer- 
tainly closer  akin  to  Moses  than  to  the  great  ethical 
teachers  Buddha  and  Jesus. 

1  Cumont,  Mysteres  de  Mithra,  10. 

^  According  to  Jackson  he  died  about  the  time  of  the  Captiv- 
ity; but  this  seems  doubtful. 


FROM  THE  CAPTIVITY  TO  CHRIST        29 

The  most  permanent  results  of  the  establishment 
of  the  Persian  cults  at  Babylon  may  perhaps  best  be 
stated  in  some  such  terms  as  these.  It  carried  towards 
the  West  the  Persian  idea  of  the  conflict  between 
good  and  evil  blended  with  the  notion  of  the  good 
and  evil  angels.  It  shadowed  the  presence  of  a  su- 
preme and  unknowable  god,  Ahura  Mazda,  below 
whom  lesser  gods  came  into  play  within  the  ken 
of  humanity.  Among  these  gods  and  the  ideas  with 
which  they  were  connected,  it  is  possible  that  Mithra, 
the  Sun  God,  was  supreme;  at  all  events,  the  idea  of 
the  Sun,  and  of  the  radiancy  of  heaven,  of  the  connec- 
tion between  light  and  good  was  very  prominent.^ 
More  will  be  said  of  Mithra  before  long;  for  the  mo- 
ment it  will  suffice  to  state  that  his  later  myth  was 
one  of  the  salvation  of  mankind  by  the  god's  re- 
deeming sacrifice,  and  that  his  cult  was  a  mystery, 
restricted  to  a  small  group  of  initiated  devotees; 
nothing  seems  more  likely  than  that  these  devotees 
included  the  Persian  sovereigns;  and  in  any  case  the 
rapid  growth  of  the  Sun  worship  and  their  attach- 
ment to  it  are  fairly  well  established  facts.  Even  if 
the  cult  of  Mithra  remained  for  a  time  inconspicuous, 
the  few  who  thought,  the  isolated  intellects  scattered 
here  and  there  began  to  catch  sight,  behind  all  the 
fables  and  externals  of  national  cults,  Persian,  or  Baby- 
lonian, or  Jewish,  of  the  wider  idea  of  a  supreme,  in- 
definite, unintelligible  and  universal  Deity. 

*  There  seems  to  be  little  to  support  Cumont's  opinion  as  to 
the  importance  of  the  Mithra  cult  as  far  back  as  the  sixth  cen- 
tury B.c . 


30  THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN   CHURCH 

The  Persian  Empire  lasted  for  about  two  centuries. 
During  that  time  it  internationahzed  a  stretch  of 
Asia  about  as  large  as  the  United  States  and  perhaps 
as  populous,  creating  economic,  social  and  adminis- 
trative intercourse  and  movement;  breaking  down 
to  some  extent  race  prejudice  and  creating  religious 
tolerance.  Almost  suddenly  travel  became  possible 
from  one  border  of  the  empire  to  the  other,  so  that 
one  of  the  early  philosophers  of  Greece  could  visit 
India  just  as  that  distant  land  was  coming  under  the 
spell  of  its  greatest  teacher,  the  Buddha  Sakyamuni. 
It|is  not  certain  that  Pythagoras,  although  he  trav- 
elled extensively  within  the  Persian  Empire,  was  ever 
in  India,  but  it  is  quite  probable.  In  any  case  Indian 
doctrines  found  their  way  into  his  philosophy,  espe- 
cially that  of  metempsychosis,  which  he  handed  on 
to  Plato.^  Pythagoras  is  also  believed  by  some  to 
have  studied  under  the  priests  at  Babylon;  while 
Plato  was  contemplating  a  journey  to  the  East  in 
quest  of  knowledge  when  he  was  prevented  by  the 
breaking  out  of  the  Persian  wars. 

The  dates  of  Buddha's  life  are  not  yet  definitely 
fixed.  Pythagoras  lived  from  582  to  500;  Buddha  per- 
haps from  622  to  542,  or  more  probably  from  558  to 
478;  the  Babylonian  Captivity  lasted  from  586  to 
537,  when  Cyrus  permitted  the  Jews  to  return  to  Pales- 

^  The  doctrines  of  metempsychosis  apparently  still  survive  in 
parts  of  Syria  among  the  Noseirriyeh ;  see  Miss  Bell's  Desert  and 
the  Sown.  It  is  of  course  impossible  to  conjecture  at  what  epoch 
they  acquired  these  beliefs.  Clement  of  Alexandria  states  that  the 
Zoroastrian  doctrines  were  known  in  Greece  at  the  time  of  Plato. 


FROM  THE  CAPTIVITY  TO  CHRIST        31 

tine.  In  other  words,  there' is  a  general  coincidence 
of  these  dates  with  that  of  the  creation  of  the  Persian 
Empire.  What  is  the  special  significance  of  Buddha 
at  that  precise  moment  in  the  history  of  the  world'^ 

India,  like  Babylonia,  had  been  conquered  by  Ar- 
yan invaders  from  the  north  closely  akin  to  the  Per- 
sians; they  developed  religious  forms  characteristic 
of  a  transition  epoch  and  resembling  in  many  details 
those  of  the  Jews.  The  Vedas  were  not  unlike  the 
sacred  records  of  the  Jews,  the  Brahmans  were  Levites 
and  Sanskrit,  like  Hebrew,  w^as  a  religious  language. 
The  Vedanta  beliefs,  eventually  systematized  as 
Brahmanism,  were  mythological,  comporting  a  nu- 
merous array  of  gods  and  goddesses  and  all  that  this 
implied;  but  behind  this  superficial  and  popular  veil 
the  Hindus,  like  the  Persians,  had  conceived  the  Uni- 
versal Spirit,  invisible,  all-pervading,  without  be- 
ginning and  without  end,  an  object  more  of  contem- 
plation than  of  ritual.  It  was  when  the  religion  of  the 
Vedas  had  already  become  stagnant  and  overlaid  with 
ritualism  that  Buddha  appeared. 

Two  things  regarding  Buddha  concern  us  here: 
one,  the  legend;  the  other,  the  teaching.  The  legend 
is  highly  wrought,  widely  diffused.  In  it  Buddha  ap- 
pears a  miraculous  personage;  he  is  born  of  a  Virgin; 
he  performs  endless  miracles,  and  his  translation  into 
Nirvana  is  likewise  miraculous.  This  side  of  the  le- 
gend need  not  be  dwelt  on  further  than  to  note  the 
fact  that  it  more  or  less  repeats  the  tales  associated 
shortly  before  this  with  Zoroaster.  But  what  may  be 
insisted  on  is  the  prevalence  and  long  continuance 


32  THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

of  these  legends  about  this  preeminent  man  for  many 
centuries,  the  intense  love  of  the  Oriental  for  stories 
and  allegories,  and  the  long  existence  of  a  channel  for 
communicating  Indian  ideas  westward  through  the 
empires  of  the  Persians,  of  Alexander  and  of  the  Seleu- 
cidse.  This  last  matter  will  be  dealt  with  later,  as  also 
the  rise  of  Buddhism  and  its  propaganda. 

Behind  the  legend  a  real  man  is  discernible,  a 
man  with  a  mission  to  his  fellow  men.  And  this  mis- 
sion, unlike  that  of  Zoroaster,  is  not  to  enforce  the 
laws  of  a  national  deity,  not  to  impose  the  code  of  a 
national  priesthood,  not  to  lament  or  predict  national 
disasters,  not  to  visit  wrath  on  neighbouring  nations, 
but  to  draw  man  into  gentle  self-communion,  to 
make  him  realize  the  better  side  of  his  complex  na- 
ture through  purity  and  simplicity  of  life,  to  bring 
him  to  salvation  through  individual  righteousness. 
It  was  that  for  which  Buddha  stood.  He  realized 
in  India  what  his  two  great  contemporaries  east 
and  west,  Confucius  and  Socrates,  did  not;  for  they, 
despairing  of  national  cults,  only  estabhshed  modes  of 
thought,  while  he  founded  the  first  great  international 
religion  of  humanity. 

This  statement  requires  some  qualification.  In 
Greece,  where  the  religious  element  was  weakest  and 
the  philosophic  strongest,  a  similar  tendency  is  mani- 
fest in  Pythagoras,  Socrates,  Plato  (582-348).  But 
whereas  on  the  eastern  side  of  the  Persian  Empire 
the  doctrine  of  humanity  was  preached  within  the 
limits  of  religion,  and  after  the  death  of  its  preacher 
was  rapidly  overlaid  with  formalism,  on  the  western 


FROM  THE  CAPTIVITY  TO  CHRIST        33 

side  it  tended  otherwise,  became  even  antireligious, 
as  in  Socrates.  In  India  it  remained  the  inner  core  of 
a  cult  that  still  survives;  in  Greece  it  was  merely  an 
intellectual  movement,  that  became  later,  after  some 
phases  that  will  have  to  be  noticed,  one  of  the  com- 
ponent factors  of  Christianity.  For  it  must  be  re- 
membered that  if  the  descent  of  Paul  is  in  one  line  from 
Moses,  in  another  it  is  from  Plato  and  the  Stoics. 

The  sixth  century  before  Christ,  therefore,  may 
fairly  be  described  as  one  of  extraordinary  change. 
The  creation  of  the  Persian  Empire  gave  a  splendid 
channel  for  the  circulation  of  new  ideas;  and  Baby- 
lon was  the  centre  of  that  empire.  What  wonder 
is  it,  then,  that  the  Jewish  prophetical  books  of  the 
period  of  the  Captivity  and  after,  some  of  them  writ- 
ten in  Babylon  itself,  show  marked  differences  from 
those  of  the  earlier  period.'^ 

These  differences  can  best  be  traced  in  such  pro- 
phetic books  as  that  of  Ezekiel  or  in  such  a  narrative 
as  that  of  Jonah.  The  chief  preoccupation  of  the 
prophets  is  still  the  God  and  the  people  of  Israel  and 
the  sacred  city  Jerusalem,  but  it  is  less  narrow,  less 
gloomy;  the  glories  of  Babylon  illumine  the  pages, 
and  behind  them  world  empires  are  in  shock.  So  when 
Ezekiel  is  called  from  among  the  captives  to  the  pro- 
phetic mission,  God  appears  to  him  in  a  manner  that 
suggests  very  strongly  the  attributes  of  the  Persian 
Sun  God.  (Ezek.  i,  26-28.) ^  This  influence  may  be 
open  to  doubt,  but  there  can  be  none  as  to  that  of  the 

^  It  must  be  admitted  that  this  is  very  hazardous.  Although 
the  event  happened  half  a  century  earlier,  there  is  no  difficulty  in 


34  THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

Assyrian  and  Babylonian  art.  The  visions  of  the  Jew- 
ish prophets  now  reflect  monstrous  creatures,  in  which 
wings,  eyes,  wheels  of  fire  and  human-headed  ani- 
mals, revolve  in  apocalyptic  confusion.  And  the 
dreadful  beast  with  the  iron  teeth  and  the  horns  with 
human  eyes  is  inextricably  mixed  up  with  a  Mithraic 
stream  of  heavenly  light  in  which  ten  thousand  times 
ten  thousand  Persian  angels  minister  to  a  supreme 
deity  known  no  longer  as  Jehovah  but  as  the  Ancient 
of  Days.  Politically  it  is  the  same.  The  young  men 
of  Israel,  —  Daniel,  Meshach  and  the  others,— be- 
come the  administrators  of  the  Persian  sovereigns, 
and  are  loyal  to  the  machine  of  which  they  form  part. 
And  even  in  that  most  important  element  of  change, 
the  rising  cult  of  humanity  which  we  have  just  la- 
belled with  the  convenient  names  of  Buddha  and 
Pythagoras,  it  is  possible,  though  diflScult,  to  detect 
the  spirit  of  the  coming  age.  It  is  surely  not  an  ex- 
aggeration to  say  that  in  the  book  of  Jonah  the  atti- 
tude of  the  writer  towards  the  pagan  inhabitants  of 
Nineveh  is  nearer  to  the  proselytizing  humanity  of 
Paul  than  to  the  destructive  zealotry  of  Joshua. 

In  537  B.C.  Cyrus  permitted  some  50,000  Jews  to 
migrate  back  from  Babylon  to  Judsea.  Apparently 
they  were  the  most  intensely  national  kernel  of  their 
race,  which  by  this  time  was  largely  scattered  in  Egypt, 
in  the  valley  of  the  Euphrates,  in  Asia  Minor.  With 
them  were  the  national  and  the  prophetic  traditions. 
Yet  at  first  their  return  proved  a  failure.  The  mixed 

supposing  that  the  text,  or  this  part  of  it,  dates  later  than  538  B.C. 
from  which  time  the  Persian  influence  would  exist. 


FROM  THE  CAPTIVITY  TO  CHRIST        35 

races  of  Judaea  proved  too  strong  and  began  to  ab- 
sorb the  exiles.  A  second  party  led  by  Ezra,  a  favour- 
ite of  the  Emperor  Artaxerxes,  did  better  in  the  fol- 
lowing century,  and  soon  afterwards  Nehemiah,  a 
Jewish  official  of  the  same  sovereign,  was  sent  out  as 
Satrap  of  Judaea.  Ezra  and  Nehemiah  succeeded  in 
restoring  a  semblance  of  the  old  Jewish  state,  un- 
der Persian  suzerainty.  The  walls  of  Jerusalem  were 
rebuilt;  racial  purity  was  obtained  by  annulling  the 
marriages  of  Jews  with  Gentiles,  by  rescuing  degener- 
ate Jews  and  housing  them  in  Jerusalem;  the  Levites 
were  reconstituted.  Curious  effort  of  the  old  desert 
tribe  to  reassert  its  fundamental  tribal  exclusiveness 
and  force!  From  this  moment  that  was  to  be  the  do- 
minant note  at  Jerusalem,  —  a  fanatic  conservatism, 
building  zealously  not  for  the  future  but  for  the  past. 
The  books  of  Ezra,  of  Nehemiah,  and  of  the  lesser 
prophets  and  priests  of  the  epoch  reveal  this.  Their 
note  is  less  and  less  inspired,  more  and  more  practi- 
cal. Let  us  get  the  Temple  rebuilt,  Jerusalem  reinhab- 
ited,  our  people  rescued  from  Gentile  absorption,  — 
these  are  the  dominant  thoughts.  And  with  Ezra,  in 
the  second  half  of  the  fifth  century,  may  be  said  to  be- 
gin a  new  era.  For  with  him  we  note  two  well-marked 
tendencies  that  rapidly  develop  later.  One  is  to  fix 
the  authority  of  the  Old  Testament  as  a  theocratic 
code  of  law;  the  second  is  to  abandon  the  Hebrew 
tongue  and  to  use  instead  Aramaic,  the  widespread 
lingua  franca  of  the  Semitic  world.  The  first  means 
that  the  period  of  vitality  was  making  way  for  that 
of  dogmatism,  the  second  that  the  Jews  were  now  so 


36  THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

placed  in  relation  to  surrounding  countries  that  tri- 
bal isolation  of  speech  was  hopeless  and  wide  inter- 
national communication  inevitable. 

From  the  epoch  of  Nehemiah  and  Ezra  for  a  cen- 
tury or  so  nothing  need  delay  us.  The  Roman  Re- 
public was  now  rapidly  extending  its  borders,  though 
it  had  not  yet  entered  into  its  conflict  with  Phoeni- 
cian Carthage.  The  Greek  cities  had  repelled  the 
extension  of  the  Persian  Empire  into  Europe,  and  had 
then  fallen  to  internecine  strife  that  fatally  drained 
the  strength  of  Sparta,  Thebes  and  Athens,  leaving 
the  larger  and  more  backward  Macedonian  state  the 
supreme  military  arbiter  of  the  Balkan  peninsula.  The 
Persian  Empire  gradually  decayed.  Constitutionally 
feeble,  it  had  fallen  into  weak  hands,  and  soon  tended 
to  break  up.  The  old  military  vigour  of  the  Persian  hill 
men  was  sapped  by  power  and  internal  peace.  Pre- 
monitory symptoms  of  collapse  appeared  at  the  close 
of  the  fifth  century,  and  finally  the  Macedonian  state 
rose  to  military  eflSciency  under  Philip,  and  his  son 
Alexander  sprang  from  Europe  into  Asia  and  shat- 
tered the  Persian  Empire  to  dust  at  the  battles  of  the 
Granicus,  Issus,  and  Arbela  (334-331  B.C.), 

Here  again,  as  in  the  sixth  century,  we  have  a  revo- 
lution in  the  history  of  mankind.  It  is  no  longer  a 
Persian  dynasty  that  rules  from  the  Indus  to  the  sea 
of  Marmora,  but  a  Greek.  The  people  are  the  same, 
Semites  and  Aryans,  speaking  many  dialects,  wor- 
shipping many  gods ;  but  the  dominant  caste  has  gone, 
and  that  means  the  substitution  of  Greek  for  Persian 
influence.  But  in  331  B.C.  Greek  culture  had  already 


FROM  THE  CAPTIVITY  TO  CHRIST        37 

developed  that  full  flower  which  the  thinkers,  artists 
and  idealists  of  all  subsequent  ages  have  continued  to 
admire,  to  copy,  to  place  on  the  supreme  pedestal. 
Persian  culture  had  done  none  of  these  things;  its 
only  point  of  superiority  was  religious.  The  result 
quickly  appeared.  The  conquest  of  Alexander  and 
the  rule  of  his  successors  hellenized  the  East,  in  gov- 
ernment, in  art,  in  intellectualism.  The  architect- 
ure of  Greece  spread  its  splendid  forms  over  Asia 
Minor  and  Syria,  and  extended  its  influence  thou- 
sands of  miles  to  the  east;  the  Attic  drama  pene- 
trated to  India  and  central  Asia,  and  probably  enough 
thence  to  far-away  China;  the  language  of  Demos- 
thenes and  Aristotle  became  the  sole  medium  of  gov- 
ernment and  of  culture,  while  the  Semitic  Aramaic 
or  Aryan  Persian  remained  merely  untutored  local 
dialects.^  And  as  an  incident  of  this  process  Greek 
came  into  contact  w^ith  Hebrew. 

It  seems  clear  that  during  the  epoch  that  followed 
the  conquest  of  Alexander  the  population  increased 
rapidly.  There  was  economic,  commercial  develop- 
ment. The  ancient  policy  of  planting  colonies,  which 
the  Persians  had  practised,  became  very  extensive. 
Planting  a  colony  might  have  two  objects:  one,  to 
weaken  a  nation  by  removing  from  its  midst  some 
of  its  most  active  elements;  the  other,  to  make  of  the 
colony,  a  nucleus  of  support  for  the  central  govern- 
ment. During  the  Hellenistic  period,  between  the  time 
of  Alexander  and  that  of  Christ,  Asia  Minor  and  Syria 

^  For  those  who  like  modern  instances  the  relation  of  French 
to  Flemish  and  Walloon  in  Belgium  may  be  cited. 


38  THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

were  dotted  thickly  with  Greek  cities  and  Greek  colo- 
nies; while  the  Jews,  whose  scattering  had  begun  long 
before  the  period  of  Alexander,  were  almost  as  widely 
distributed  —  influential  and  highly  intelligent  com- 
munities in  most  cities  of  any  importance. 

There  is  another  broad  aspect  of  the  epoch  that 
must  not  be  omitted.  The  Greek  influence  was  purely 
negative  in  the  religious  sense;  but  very  fruitful  in  the 
philosophising  sense.  So  far  as  religion  was  concerned 
there  were  superficial  changes ;  the  old  cults  changed 
little  below  the  surface,  though  they  largely  adopted 
a  hellenized  exterior,  —  an  exterior  of  language  and 
of  sestheticism.  But  those  people  of  the  empire  who 
had  perceived  behind  the  cult  of  Mithra,  or  of  Jeho- 
vah or  of  other  gods,  the  light  of  the  universal  and 
unknowable  deity,  were  not  directly  attacked  in  a  be- 
lief which  the  philosophers  of  Greece  had  already  ac- 
cepted. Within  a  remote  corner  of  the  new  empire,  in 
the  upper  valley  of  the  Indus,  the  legend  and  doctrine 
of  Buddha  had  now  gathered  strength.  And  one  cen- 
tury later,  when  Antiochus  the  Great  ruled  from  the 
Indus  to  Jerusalem,  Buddhism  came  to  its  oflScial 
triumph. 

There  is  a  curious  even  if  non-significant  paral- 
lelism between  the  history  of  the  first  three  centuries 
of  Buddhism  and  of  Christianity.  In  both  cases  there 
was  the  humble  start  from  the  small  group  of  apos- 
tles left  behind,  then  three  centuries  of  obscure  strug- 
gle, persecution  and  comparative  insignificance,  and 
lastly  the  conversion  of  a  mighty  emperor,  with  sud- 
den dominion  following.  It  was  the  great  Indian  em- 


FROM  THE  CAPTIVITY  TO  CHRIST        39 

peror  Asoka  who  did  for  Buddhism  what  Constantine 
was  to  do  for  Christianity.  He  suddenly  found  faith 
and  supported  the  creed  he  had  hitherto  persecuted. 
He  made  Buddhism  his  state  rehgion.  He  called  a 
great  Buddhist  council;  and  under  his  auspices  nu- 
merous missionaries  were  sent  out  to  propagate  the 
faith  both  within  India  and  without.  All  this  was 
happening  during  the  close  of  a  reign  that  lasted 
from  260  to  223  B.C. 

Unfortunately  we  know  far  less  of  the  spread  of 
Indian  influence  westward  than  of  Greek  influence 
eastward.  But  if  the  matter  is  looked  at  reasonably, 
there  is  some  ground  for  conjecturing  that  Buddhis- 
tic influence  may  have  gone  further  than  is  usually 
supposed.  For  the  historical  evidence  as  to  those 
times  is  mostly  archaeological  and  only  to  a  slight 
extent  documentary.  But  the  evidence  of  archaeol- 
ogy is  the  evidence  of  architecture  and  inscriptions, 
which,  as  Greek  culture  was  predominant,  could  not 
and  did  not  take  on  an  Indian  character.  Noble  ruins 
still  testify  that  Greece  expressed  her  artistic  emotions 
in  granite  and  marble,  but  there  are  none  to  bear 
witness  to  those  deeper  movements  of  the  conscience 
that  spread  from  India  westward.  For  does  it  fol- 
low, from  the  supremacy  of  Greek  sestheticism  and 
language,  that  among  the  great  masses  of  the  East, 
whose  literature  was  the  traveller's  tale,  whose  archi- 
tecture was  the  mud  hovel  or  camel's  hair  tent,  whose 
religious  emotions  were  already  strongly  tinged  by 
the  conception  of  the  universal  god,  the  ideas  of 
Buddhism  did  not  make  their  way?  And  by  the  ideas 


40  THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

of  Buddhism  is  meant  the  legend  of  the  miracles,  the 
ideal  of  asceticism  and  purity,  the  individual  teach- 
ing of  a  doctrine  of  humanity  under  a  supreme  deity. 
Such  hypotheses  are  bound  to  be  shadowy,  and  yet  it 
is  impossible  to  leave  them  out  of  account.  And  this 
attempt  to  see  the  possible  Buddhistic  component 
in  the  soil  out  of  which  Christianity  was  to  spring 
may  best  be  closed  by  a  definite  fact.  After  Asoka 
the  next  great  epoch  of  Buddhistic  effort  came 
precisely  as  Christianity  was  forming.  The  Emperor 
Kanishka,  whose  rule  extended  from  Delhi  to  the 
Caspian  and  who  lived  from  15  B.C.  to  45  a.d., 
was  the  greatest  supporter  of  Buddhism  after  Asoka. 
Under  his  auspices  another  great  Buddhistic  council 
was  summoned  in  the  Punjab,  and  the  faith  which 
the  missionaries  had  already  carried  well-nigh  to  the 
Caspian  two  centuries  before,  received  a  new  propa- 
gandist impetus.^  And  it  may  be  noted  that  there 
was  at  least  one  strong  line  of  communication  be- 
tween the  largest  Jewish  centre  of  that  time  and 
India.  For  a  trade  route  ran  from  the  mouth  of  the 
Indus  to  Alexandria,  in  which  city  were  Indian  mer- 
chants who  became  quite  an  important  part  of  the 
community  towards  the  close  of  the  first  century  a.d. 
Turning  now  to  the  political  changes  of  the  period, 
let  us  see  how  the  Jews  of  Palestine  were  affected  by 
the  Greek  conquest.   In  332  Jerusalem  was  quietly 

^  The  Buddhist  sacred  books  were  not  reduced  to  writing 
until  about  a  hundred  years  before  Christ.  The  working  of  oral 
tradition  may  therefore  be  assumed  to  have  been  very  strong  at 
least  up  to  that  moment. 


FROM  THE  CAPTIVITY  TO  CHRIST        41 

transferred  from  the  dominion  of  Darius  to  that  of 
Alexander.  The  Greek  monarch  was  prepared  to 
accept  all  religions  and  to  respect  all  local  customs; 
he  aroused  no  antagonisms.  After  the  death  of  Alex- 
ander, Jerusalem  was  so  placed  as  to  become  an 
object  of  strife  between  two  of  the  kingdoms  erected 
by  his  successors,  that  of  the  Seleucids  and  that  of 
the  Ptolemies.  An  interesting  new  epoch  opened  that 
lasted  until  167  B.C.;  it  was  marked  by  striking  events 
in  the  field  of  politics,  and  in  that  of  Hebrew  thought. 

The  unfortunate  situation  of  Jerusalem,  on  a  line 
of  shock  between  two  great  states,  was  never  more 
acutely  felt  than  during  this  epoch.  The  Ptolemies 
and  the  Seleucids  were  continually  at  war;  Palestine 
was  continually  harried.  As  early  as  320  b.c.  there 
came  a  great  siege  of  Jerusalem,  as  a  result  of  which 
100,000  of  her  people  were  carried  captive  to  Egypt, 
largely  to  help  build  up  Alexandria,  the  new  metro- 
polis of  the  Greek  world.  From  this  bad  start  even 
worse  followed.  For  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  the 
storms  kept  breaking  over  the  city  and  by  the  begin- 
ning of  the  second  century  it  had  been  reduced  very 
low  indeed. 

At  this  moment  Rome  was  just  emerging  from  her 
death  struggle  with  Carthage.  Almost  without  an 
instant's  pause  she  turned  her  formidable  legions 
eastward,  beginning  the  long  struggle  against  the 
Greek  monarchies  that  was  to  terminate  with  the 
disaster  of  Kleopatra  and  Antony  at  Actium  in  31 
B.C.  As  the  defeated  Hannibal  fled  towards  the  East, 
Jerusalem  was  under  the  power  of  Antiochus  III, 


42  THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

greatest  of  the  Seleucid  sovereigns.  He  had  suc- 
ceeded in  reestabhshing  to  its  furthest  Hmits  the  in- 
heritance of  his  ancestors,  reducing  the  Persians  to 
vassalage  and  ruhng  as  far  east  as  the  Punjab;  but 
the  close  of  his  reign  saw  him  give  refuge  to  the 
suppliant  Hannibal,  anger  Rome,  meet  her  armies 
in  Thessaly,  and  suffer  ruinous  defeat.  From  that 
moment  he  and  his  successors  were  severely  pressed 
by  the  great  republic  of  the  West,  and  that  pressure 
involved  raising  larger  and  larger  revenues.  His 
grandson,  Antiochus  Epiphanes,  became  involved  in 
a  taxpaying  struggle  with  his  Jewish  subjects,  and 
perhaps  ascribing  to  religious  causes  their  reluctance 
to  meet  his  collectors,  he  outlawed  the  cult  of  Jehovah, 
destroyed  the  altars,  defiled  the  Temple,  persecuted 
the  priests,  and  attempted  to  force  Greek  rites  on 
them.  This  resulted  in  the  revolt  of  Mattathias 
Maccabseus,  and  in  the  reestabhshment,  for  a  while, 
of  an  independent  Jewish  state. 

Greek  culture  had  preceded  Greek  conquest.  The 
sudden  assertion  of  Greek  political  influence  over 
the  East  by  the  hoplites  and  mail-clad  cavalry  of 
Alexander  had  long  been  prepared  by  deeper  acting 
causes.  Yet  this  political  influence  reacted  powerfully 
and  immediately  on  the  cultural,  and  no  more  remark- 
able result  of  this  reaction  is  to  be  found  than  that  on 
the  Hebrew  sacred  literature.  The  tide  of  prophetic 
production  ceased  to  flow.  The  canon  of  the  Old 
Testament  was  virtually  closed;  and  the  rapid  drain- 
ing off  of  the  Jewish  people  to  Egypt  soon  made  the 
new  Alexandria  a  greater  Jewish  city  than  Jerusalem 


FROM  THE  CAPTIVITY  TO  CHRIST        43 

itself.  It  was  at  Alexandria,  at  the  beginning  of  the 
third  century,  that  the  canon  of  the  Old  Testament 
was  translated  into  Greek  (275-150  B.C.),  to  supply 
the  hellenized  Jews  of  Egypt  with  an  intelligible 
text ;  this  was  the  famous  version  known  as  the  Sep- 
tuagint.  From  this  moment  the  Hebrew  language 
may  be  considered  extinct  as  a  living  force.  Aramaic 
is  the  patois  of  Judsea;  Greek  is  the  international 
and  cultured  language;  Hebrew  is  merely  a  sacred  or 
learned  tongue.  And  a  great  landmark  in  history  is 
reached  when  the  conjunction  of  Greek  and  Hebrew 
takes  place,  when  a  considerable  part  of  the  Jewish 
people  accept  the  language  of  Greece,  through  which, 
three  centuries  later,  they  will  infuse  their  own  re- 
ligious thought  into  the  Mediterranean  world. 

One  word  more  of  Alexandria.  Another  of  the  fund- 
amental distortions  which  ancient  history  presents 
concerns  this  great  city.  The  impression  is  left  that 
its  importance  was  less  than  that  of  Athens  or  of 
Rome.  The  fact  is  questionable.  Athens  prospered 
politically  for  only  a  hundred  years,  and  never 
equalled  Alexandria  in  size.  Rome  flourished  about 
five  hundred  years.  But  Alexandria  saw  almost  un- 
interrupted prosperity  for  nearly  a  thousand  years; 
and  during  a  great  part  of  that  time  was  the  centre 
of  Mediterranean  culture. 

From  the  period  of  the  Septuagint  to  that  of  Christ 
it  is  now  possible  to  summarize  the  history  of  the 
Jews  in  a  few  rapid  strokes.  Their  literature  or  cult- 
ure flows  in  two  streams,  one  hellenized,  the  other 
not.  As  to  the  former  it  is  mainly  to  be  found  in  the 


44  THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

apocryphal  books  of  the  Old  Testament  that  date 
largely  from  the  second  and  first  centuries  before 
Christ,  and  that  were  gradually  translated  from  the 
original  Hebrew,  or  Aramaic,  into  the  Greek  version 
of  the  Septuagint.  Whether  historical  in  type,  like 
the  books  of  the  Maccabees,  or  literary  and  fabulous 
like  the  book  of  Bel  and  the  Dragon,  they  reflect  the 
spirit  of  a  new  age;  there  is  little  in  them  to  recall  the 
utterance  of  Isaiah  or  Jeremiah.  On  the  other  hand, 
there  had  been,  ever  since  the  return  from  the  Cap- 
tivity, a  tendency  among  the  priestly  caste,  first  to 
reduce  the  books  and  traditions  into  an  accepted  code, 
and  that  once  accomplished,  to  comment,  interpret, 
and  expand  out  from  it  a  system  of  theocratic  law. 
These  were  the  elements,  derived  largely  from  the 
Old  Testament,  out  of  which  the  Talmud  grew,  and 
that  gave  a  particular  character  to  Judaism  shortly 
before  the  time  of  Christ.  But  this  is  outstripping 
the  date,  167  B.C.,  which  was  the  point  at  which  we 
left  the  Jewish  remnant,  crushed  yet  unconquerable, 
rising  under  the  leadership  of  Mattathias  Maccabseus 
against  the  Seleucid  power. 

With  Rome  knocking  at  the  gates  of  the  East,  the 
moment  was  propitious  for  the  Jews.  Under  the 
Maccabean  princes  they  succeeded  in  reentering 
and  holding  Jerusalem.  They  formed  alliances  with 
the  Romans,  and  rested  their  power  internally  on 
the  priests  and  learned  men,  whom  they  formed 
into  the  Sanhedrin,  a  council  presided  by  the  High 
Priest.  The  Maccabean  line,  known  as  that  of  the 
Asmonean  princes,  lasted  over  a  century,  but  its 


FROM  THE  CAPTIVITY  TO  CHRIST         45 

last  years  were  marked  by  internal  dissensions  and 
civil  war  that  led  to  Roman  intervention.  In  54  b.c. 
Crassus  plundered  the  Temple.  The  Asmonean  line 
came  to  an  end  shortly  afterwards,  and  was  followed 
by  that  of  the  Idumsean  princes;  Herod  getting  pos- 
session of  Jerusalem,  with  Roman  help,  in  37  b.c. 
This  cruel  tyrant,  a  Jew  in  religion  only,  not  in  race, 
remained  the  successful  despot  of  Judaea  until  the 
year  4  B.C.,  the  reputed  date  of  the  birth  of  Jesus.  At 
his  death,  although  his  kingdom  was  divided  among 
his  sons,  Palestine  was  rapidly  becoming  something 
more  than  a  Roman  protectorate,  and  before  long 
Jerusalem  passed  under  the  direct  control  of  Roman 
officials. 

During  this  period  the  power  of  the  Sanhedrin  had 
apparently  grown;  at  all  events,  the  spirit  that  lay 
behind  it  had  become  the  chief  characteristic  of  the 
Jews.  The  remnant  of  Jerusalem  had  now  for  nu- 
cleus a  group  of  learned  men,  scribes,  doctors  in  the 
Law  of  Israel.  And  these  doctors  were  in  a  very  simi- 
lar condition  to  those  of  the  Greeks,  as  to  whom  much 
will  have  to  be  said  presently;  they  were  pedants,  in- 
terpreters of  texts,  disputators,  theological  hairsplit- 
ters.  They  were  no  longer  prophets,  only  experts  in 
dogmatic  literature.  But  that  literature  was  sacred 
and  the  Sanhedrin  administered  justice;  so  woe  be- 
tide him  whose  creed  did  not  come  within  the  correct 
interpretation  of  the  Law. 

In  sharp  contrast  stood  all  that  surrounded  the 
Jews.  All  about  that  tough  kernel  of  national  theism, 
so  pure,  so  intolerant,  so  unconquerable,  the  intel- 


46  THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

lectualism  and  emotionalism  of  the  Mediterranean 
people  had  been  reduced  to  cataclysmic  flux.  Near 
the  seat  of  the  Jewish  Law  there  was  protest  against 
its  formalism  and  aridity,  seeking  expression  in  He- 
braic unorthodoxy.  And  scattered  through  the  Ro- 
man world,  there  were  also  individual  rebels,  often 
enough  followers  of  the  philosophy  of  Zeno.  But  for 
the  most  part,  in  Asia  and  Egypt,  even  in  Rome  and 
Greece,  there  was  no  purity  and  no  intolerance,  no- 
thing but  concession  based  on  denationalization  and 
demoralization,  or  an  atrocious  blend  of  universal  su- 
perstition with  universal  scepticism.  Asia  had  fallen 
into  religious  anarchy,  save  where  the  Persian  Sun  God 
shed  a  feeble  but  increasing  illumination.  He  alone, 
in  any  of  his  numerous  forms,  seemed  to  figure  a  di- 
vine supremacy  and  to  foreshadow  a  positive  dogma 
for  mankind.  As  Horus  or  Attis,  as  Adonis,  or  Mithra, 
or  Apollo,  the  cult  of  the  Sun  fringed  the  Mediter- 
ranean Sea.  As  the  god  of  redemption  and  self-sacri- 
fice, by  his  death  and  resurrection,  he  evoked  the  doc- 
trine of  the  original  sin  of  man  and  of  his  eventual 
liberation.  These  outstanding  ideas  associated  with 
the  redeemer  Sun  God  will  be  dealt  with  in  more  detail 
later;  for  the  moment  it  must  suflSce  to  state  that 
they  were  spread  broadcast  among  the  Semitic,  Per- 
sian, Egyptian  and  Greek  populations  that  filled  with 
their  varied  cults,  customs  and  dialects  the  great  tri- 
angle between  the  Nile,  the  Caspian  and  the  ^Egean. 
But  within  a  much  narrower  zone,  close  about  the 
city  of  Jerusalem,  were  conditions  even  more  preg- 
nant for  the  future.  The  hardening  of   Jewish  re- 


FROM  THE  CAPTIVITY  TO  CHRIST        47 

ligious  life  had  not  been  effected  without  evoking 
some  resistance.  On  the  surface  Jewish  thought  ap- 
peared to  belong  to  two  categories  only,  as  repre- 
sented by  two  great  sects:  the  Sadducees,  priestly 
aristocrats,  whose  law  and  theology  were  conserva- 
tive, always  looking  back  towards  the  Pentateuch; 
the  Pharisees,  more  democratic  and  popular,  cham- 
pions of  the  newer  Law  and  of  national  progress,  be- 
lievers in  certain  dogmas  not  to  be  found  in  the  an- 
cient canon,  — the  future  life  and  the  immortality  of 
thesoul.  But  beyond  the  city  gates,  especially  among 
the  humbler  classes  of  the  Jews,  the  case  was  different. 
In  the  valley  of  Jordan,  in  Galilee,  by  the  banks  of  the 
Dead  Sea,  communities  arose  with  rites  condemned 
at  Jerusalem  and  with  virtues  not  often  practised  there. 
They  grafted  on  to  the  old  Jewish  theology  the  idea  of 
the  redeemer  god;  they  practised  his  fraternal  com- 
munion supper;  they  believed  in  charity,  purity  and 
humility.  Unfortunately,  little  is  known  about  them, 
but  clearly  their  influence  was  felt  even  in  the 
high  rabbinical  circles  of  Jerusalem.  For  it  may 
be  noted  that  in  the  reign  of  the  Maccabean  King 
Alexander  (103-76  B.C.),  who  fiercely  enforced  ortho- 
doxy, the  learned  rabbi  Joshua  ben  Parahiyah  fled 
for  the  sake  of  conscience  from  Jerusalem  to  Alex- 
andria. He  was  accompanied  by  his  disciple  Jesus, 
who  eventually  returned  to  Palestine,  there,  accord- 
ing to  the  Talmud,  to  found  a  sect  of  unorthodox 
Jews. 


CHAPTER  IV 

JESUS 

The  most  difficult  part  of  this  work  now  faces  us. 
What  are  the  facts  as  to  Jesus?  The  problem  is  the 
most  difficult  in  all  history,  and  can  only  be  described 
as  a  mystery  that  might  well  baffle  the  most  expert 
and  the  most  unbiassed  investigator.  Within  the  last 
twenty-five  years  criticism  has  rolled  up  an  immense 
mass  of  data,  mostly  negative,  on  questions  of  folk- 
lore, of  religious  custom  and  legends,  of  textual  crit- 
icism, that  leaves  very  little  strict  historical  evidence 
standing.  And  the  confession  must  be  made  that  the 
resulting  impression  cannot  be  conveyed  to  the  reader 
in  any  very  definite  terms.  In  fact  there  are  three 
possible  positions  about  Jesus,  between  which  there 
is  merely  a  balance  of  choice.  These  three  are:  (1) 
that  there  was  no  historical  Jesus,  and  that  he  must 
be  dealt  with  precisely  as  Mithra,  or  Tammuz,  or 
any  other  redeemer  god;  (2)  that  he  was  Jesus  the 
disciple  of  Joshua  ben  Parahiyah;  (3)  that  he  was 
the  Jesus  of  Christian  tradition. 

A  full  discussion  of  these  three  positions  does  not, 
of  course,  belong  to  a  book  of  general  scope.  It  must 
suffice  to  say  that  the  first  is  that  towards  which  pre- 
sent-day scholarship  appears  to  be  inclining.  It  has 
much  to  recommend  it,  and  is  already  built  up  with 
minute  points  and  arguments  to  a  remarkable  extent. 


JESUS  49 

The  supporters  o!  this  Hne  of  thought  tend,  however, 
to  press  their  arguments  too  far.  It  is  doubtless  true 
that  the  foundation  of  a  characteristic  ceremony  hke 
that  of  the  communion  was  ascribed  to  Jesus  by 
pious  fraud,  and  that  the  description  of  the  scene 
was  diplomatically  made  to  tally  with  the  details  of 
popular  spring  festivals,  and  that  such  things  may  be 
dismissed  as  unhistorical.  But  when  the  same  line 
of  explanation  is  dragged  in  to  fit  the  most  trivial 
detail  and  incident,  one  begins  to  doubt  the  neces- 
sity of  the  explanation  and  the  good  sense  of  the 
explainer.  So  that  while  it  is  generally  true  to  say 
that  almost  all  the  incidents  of  the  Hfe  of  Jesus,  as 
recorded  in  the  Christian  books,  can  be  described  as 
typical  myths,  and  that  some  of  them  are  conclu- 
sively myths  and^  nothing  else,  yet  that  does  not  seem 
sufficient  in  itself  ta  dispose  of  the  real  existence  of 
Jesus.  \ 

The  second  position  is  th^t  he  lived  about  130  to 
70  B.C.  There  is  nothing  to  support  this  directly  save 
a  vague  statement  in  the  Talmud,  and  some  hazy 
historical  probabilities  based  on  the  rites  and  on  the 
chronology  of  the  Jewish  sects.  Yet  that  chronology, 
if  we  attempt  to  seize  its  outlines  from  the  time  of 
Joshua  ben  Parahiyah  through  Peter  to  Paul,  appeals 
very  strongly  to  the  historian.  Its  shape  looks  right. 
At  the  same  time  this  foundation  must  for  the  present 
be  rejected  as  too  shght  and  too  insecure  to  build  on, 
and  the  third  position  must  be  accepted,  with  some 
reluctance,  as  the  most  probable  of  the  three. 

For  the  third  position,  that  of  the  historical  Jesus 


50  THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

in  the  sense  of  the  Christian  books,  the  strongest 
argument  is  not  precise  but  impressionistic.  The 
historical  Jesus  cannot  be  demonstrated  or  proved; 
he  can  only  be  felt  as  a  real  personality.  And  that 
means  that  his  sayings,  taken  as  a  whole  after  all 
critical  deductions  have  been  made,  leave  the  impres- 
sion of  pronounced  and  consistent  individuality.  It 
is  true  that  such  impressions  are  apt  to  be  untrust- 
worthy, and  that  in  this  case  the  conditions  surround- 
ing the  gospel  text  of  the  sayings  of  Jesus  render 
caution  and  misgiving  doubly  imperative.  And  yet 
the  impression  appears  to  hold.  On  such  a  basis, 
then,  the  historical  Jesus  will  now  be  approached, 
not  in  a  spirit  of  historical  certitude,  but  rather  in  one 
of  grave  historical  doubt.  In  fact  it  would  be  fair  to 
describe  what  follows  not  as  history,  but  as  all  that 
can  reasonably  be  argued  to  remain  of  the  history  of 
Jesus. 

Jesus  probably  came  from  one  of  those  Jewish 
families,  humble  in  circumstances  yet  racially  pure, 
that  inhabited  the  northern  parts  of  Palestine.  The 
population  was  very  mixed,  —  from  the  lowest  strata  of 
Canaanites,  social  outcasts  representing  the  most  an- 
cient race  of  the  country,  to  those  Jews  who  had  inter- 
married with  Samaritans  and  others,  not  keeping  the 
strict  requirements  of  the  Hebrew  law.  Even  among 
the  pure  Jews  it  is  clear  that  the  influence  of  the  San- 
hedrin  was  not  great.  It  is  true  that  they  attended 
the  synagogue  to  hear  the  Scriptures  expounded, 
but  they  were  too  far  from  the  city  of  Jerusalem  to 


JESUS  51 

feel  its  religious  stimulus  keenly, — and  soon  after  the 
birth  of  Jesus  they  passed  under  a  different  jurisdic- 
tion from  southern  Palestine.  In  Galilee  ruled  Herod, 
hellenized,  superstitious,  tyrannical;  in  Jerusalem  a 
Roman  Praetor  had  been  installed,  with  Roman  troops, 
leaving  the  Jewish  theocracy  very  much  checked  in 
its  action. 

The  times  were  unhappy.  As  already  related,  Pal- 
estine had  suffered  severely  since  the  rapid  decay  of  the 
Seleucid  Empire  had  set  in  two  centuries  earlier.  Nor 
had  the  irruption  of  the  Romans  into  the  East  brought 
about  improved  conditions.  The  Parthian  monarchy 
had  gradually  risen  on  the  ruins  of  the  Seleucidse, 
and  hadjcome  into  violent  conflict  with  the  newcom- 
ers. Only  a  few  years  earlier  Crassus  had  paid  with 
his  life  for  one  of  the  greatest  reverses  the  Roman  arms 
had  yet  met  with,  and  for  the  moment  the  Parthians 
held  the  valley  of  the  Euphrates  triumphantly.  Pal- 
estine was  again  on  the  edge  of  the  contest,  and  had 
to  pay. 

Her  immediate  rulers,  the  Asmonean  princes,  were 
more  Palestinian  than  Jewish,  more  rapacious  than 
national.  Politics,  both  local  and  international,  turned 
very  largely  on  questions  of  finance.  The  world  had 
no  banking  system,  no  credit  system ;  yet  immense 
states  and  vainglorious  sovereigns  lavished  enormous 
sums  on  armies  or  on  ostentation;  they  were  power- 
ful in  direct  ratio  of  the  wealth  they  could  accumu- 
late. And  to  accumulate  wealth  meant  squeezing  it 
out  of  those  who  held  it.  So  that  in  Palestine  the 
rulers  weighed  on  the  rich,  and  the  rich  on  the  poor. 


52  THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

after  a  fashion  that  has  varied  httle  from  that  day  to 
this.  We  have  in  acute  conditions  of  financial  oppres- 
sion, one  of  the  fundamental  facts  that  explain  the 
life  and  teaching  of  Jesus. ^ 

The  other  fundamental  fact  is  one  that  will  be 
brought  out  in  the  course  of  the  narrative  and  that 
is  therefore  only  referred  to  here,  —  the  opposition 
between  the  Jewish  preacher  of  a  doctrine  of  humanity 
and  the  dominant  Jewish  sect  whose  belief  did  not 
extend  beyond  Hebraism. 

The  personal  history  of  Jesus,  such  as  it  is,  cannot 
be  extended  over  more  than  the  eighteen  months  or 
so  of  his  ministry.  There  is  but  one  incident  of  his 
early  life  that  is  not  improbable  in  itself,  though 
it  is  not  impossible  to  find  a  prototype  for  it.  It 
is  said  that  as  a  boy,  perhaps  of  twelve,  he  was 
taken  to  Jerusalem  by  his  parents,  and  there  he 
was  discovered  by  them  within  the  precincts  of  the 

"  ^  The  following  modern  conversation  in  the  same  country 
might  well  have  taken  place  two  thousand  years  ago:  — 
"  Said  Najib : '  He  is  rich,  —  may  God  destroy  his  dwelling ! ' 
"'Oh,  Mikhail!'  said  I,  as  we  picked  our  way  across  the  muddy 
fields,  *I  have  travelled  much  in  your  country  .  .  .  and  seldom 
have  I  met  a  poor  man  whom  I  would  not  choose  for  a  friend, 
nor  a  rich  man  whom  I  would  not  shun.  Now,  how  is  this?  Does 
wealth  change  the  very  heart  in  Syria?  .  .  .' 

*"0h,  lady,'  said  Mikhail, 'the  heart  is  the  same,  but  in 
your  country  the  government  is  just  and  strong  .  .  .  whereas 
with  us  there  is  no  justice,  but  the  big  man  eats  the  little,  and 
the  little  man  eats  the  less,  and  the  government  eats  all  alike. 
And  we  all  suffer  after  our  kind,  and  cry  out  to  God  to  help  us 
since  we  cannot  help  ourselves. ' "  Bell,  The  Desert  and  the  Sown, 
318. 


JESUS  53 

Temple  disputing  with  the  Doctors.  What  can  be 
added  to  this  by  way  of  comment  is  neither  lengthy 
nor  important.  Precocity  is  not  amazing  in  a  Jewish 
child,  nor  is  the  ability  to  quote  and  interpret  scrip- 
tural passages  if  the  Jewish  education  of  those  days 
resembled  that  of  the  modern  epoch.  Yet  the  inci- 
dent does  seem  to  indicate  a  tendency  that  the  later 
career  justified;  and  we  may  also  note  in  such  scenes 
the  curiously  narrow  impasse  to  which  the  culture  of 
the  Jews  had  come.  All  their  traditions,  all  their  his- 
tory had  fallen  to  this,  the  bitter  and  continuous 
chewing  and  re-chewing  of  their  prophetic  books  to 
find  a  text  or  an  interpretation  declaring  that  the 
hated  Idumsean,  that  the  uncircumcised  Roman, 
might  be  driven  from  the  seat  of  Israel. 

From  that  moment  all  is  a  blank  for  nearly  twenty 
years.  We  can  fairly  surmise  that  Jesus  did  not  re- 
visit Jerusalem;  and  also  that  the  pained  agitation 
of  Palestine  continued.  In  fact  from  this  moment 
until  Simon  Bar  Cochba's  gallant  attempt  to  drive 
out  the  Romans  a  hundred  years  later,  Judaea  passed 
through  one  of  her  worst  epochs;  it  was  marked  by 
the  sack  of  Jerusalem  by  Titus  in  a.d.  70;  by  the  mi- 
gration of  the  Sanhedrin  to  Jamnia  shortly  after  that 
year;  by  the  constant  rise  of  patriots  and  prophets 
against  the  foreigners ;  by  final  failure  about  the  year 
135.  One  of  these  numerous  prophets,  John  the  Bap- 
tist, proved  to  be  the  immediate  forerunner  of  Jesus. 

John  the  Baptist  was  an  ascetic,  an  inhabitant  of 
the  desert,  —  and  the  desert  begins  immediately  be- 
yond the  Jordan,  a  few  hours'  journey  from  Jerusalem. 


54  THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

Like  so  many  other  Jews,  he  hoped  for  the  accom- 
phshment  of  the  prophecies  that  foretold  a  national 
Saviour,  a  Messiah  or  anointed  one,  —  in  hellenized 
form,  x/3ib-To?,  the  Christ.  The  belief  in  a  Jewish  revi- 
val was  rooted,  unshakable;  sooner  or  later,  the  new 
Davidic  prince  would  come,  prophet  and  king,  and 
from  that  moment  the  national  destiny  would  be  ac- 
complished. Ezra  was  clearly  not  the  Messiah,  as  his 
work  had  not  lasted,  nor  was  any  of  the  Maccabean 
princes,  as  worse  things  had  followed  them;  but  now 
that  the  Idumseans  and  Rome  threatened  the  extinc- 
tion of  Judaism,  surely  the  Messiah  must  come  at 
last.  Some  such  thought  was  at  the  back  of  John's 
preaching. 

But  for  that  Messiah  to  come  the  Jews  must  re- 
pent from  the  sins  that  had  caused  their  present  afflic- 
tions; they  must  obey  the  Law  and  the  Prophets. 
And  John  was  prepared  with  a  symbol  for  all  who 
should  come  to  him  in  the  spirit  of  repentance  and 
regeneration,  an  act  of  established  symbolic  repute, 
baptism  by  water.  It  is  at  that  point,  on  the  banks 
of  the  Jordan  where  John  is  baptizing  with  water, 
preaching  repentance  and  the  coming  of  the  Christ, 
that  Jesus  suddenly  comes  into  view  at  the  threshold 
of  his  ministry;  he  was  about  thirty  years  of  age. 

Jesus  was  baptized  by  John  in  the  Jordan,  and 
under  the  spell  of  the  dramatic  and  emotional  scene,  at 
once  entered  on  his  work.  However  sudden  the  start 
of  his  mission,  there  must  have  been  a  period  of  latent 
preparation,  as  the  extraordinary  events  that  followed 
seem  to  demonstrate.  And  as  to  this  period  of  prepara- 


JESUS  55 

tion  all  that  can  be  safely  surmised  is  that  it  was  one  of 
brooding  and  meditation,  perhaps  of  wandering  in  the 
desert,  of  solitude,  and  of  asceticism.  At  all  events,  as 
he  stood  there  before  John  in  the  Jordan,  there  must 
have  been  in  his  face  and  in  his  eye  the  look  that 
comes  only  from  immense  concentration  and  intro- 
spection, the  magnetism  and  will  of  the  healer,  the 
faith  and  spirituality  of  the  lover  of  mankind. 

He  left  John  only  to  emulate  him.  But  whereas 
John  did  what  he  was  able  in  repeating  the  old  Jewish 
texts  and  baptizing  with  the  water  of  Jordan,  Jesus 
had  thought  and  speech  at  his  command,  the  pictur- 
esque parable,  the  brilliant  metaphor,  the  burning 
sentence,  and  he  straightway  began  to  baptize  his  fel- 
lowmen  with  golden  words  that  could  flash  their  light 
a  thousand  miles  away  and  a  thousand  years;  for  those 
words,  spoken  in  Aramaic,  were  destined  to  impress 
all  Western  civilization  through  that  most  penetrat- 
ing of  mediums,  Greek. 

We  know  the  modern  prophet.  He  is  inevitably 
the  protagonist  of  a  cause  or  of  a  creed,  of  something 
that  can  be  organized  or  of  something  that  can  be 
formulated.  Not  so  Jesus.  He  had  no  charities  to 
establish,  no  dogmas  to  defend.  He  was  merely  a  son 
of  Palestine,  a  Jew  by  race  and  education,  speak- 
ing the  Aramaic  patois,  with  the  humble  habits  of 
the  poor,  and  within  him  a  fierce  blaze  of  wrath 
at  their  sufferings  and  a  righteous  courage  and  elo- 
quence for  their  defence.  And  it  was  on  this  note  that 
his  mission  opened.  "Come  unto  me  all  ye  that  la- 
bour and  are  heavy  laden  and  I  will  give  you  rest." 


56  THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

The  impression  is  clear,  when  one  studies  the  ac- 
count of  the  synoptic  gospels,^  that  there  were  two 
stages  in  the  preaching  of  Jesus.  The  first  may  be 
described  as  the  preaching  of  the  gospel  of  the  poor; 
the  second  is  the  struggle  against  the  Pharisees.  And 
turning  back  from  Jordan  towards  his  own  country 
about  Mount  Tabor  and  the  lake  of  Tiberias,  he  be- 
gan, as  the  New  Testament  says,  to  work  miracles 
and  preach  the  gospel.  Let  us  leave  the  miracles  for 
the  present  and  come  at  once  to  the  gospel. 

His  ministration  was  of  two  sorts,  public  and  pri- 
vate. He  entered  the  synagogues  to  expound  the 
Scriptures  after  the  Jewish  fashion,  and  he  entered 
the  house  he  met  by  the  wayside  to  expound  life  it- 
self. His  exposition  of  the  Scriptures  was  strikingly 
unorthodox  and  commanded  instant  attention.  Like 
all  oracular  works  the  Jewish  sacred  books  lent  them- 
selves to  a  wide  range  of  interpretation,  and  Jesus, 
whose  thought  was  concentrated  on  suffering  human- 
ity, discovered  in  his  text  meanings  very  different 
from  those  associated  with  them  by  the  Talmudic 
doctors.  "The  Sabbath  was  made  for  man,"  he  de- 
clared, "and  not  man  for  the  Sabbath." 

He  immediately  drew  large  crowds  of  hearers,  and 
aroused  strong  opposition  from  the  strict  Jews  of  the 
upper  caste  at  Capernaum  and  in  the  neighbouring 
villages.  He  thereupon  withdrew  to  a  less  peopled 
district,  possibly  that  of  Mount  Tabor,  in  an  attempt 
to  escape  to  the  solitude  of  the  hills.  But  he  was  fol- 
lowed by  a  great  number  of  people,  to  whom  he  is  said 
^  Matthew,  Mark  and  Luke. 


JESUS  57 

to  have  finally  addressed  what  Is,  in  reality,  a  collec- 
tion of  sayings  of  which  a  certain  proportion  certainly 
goes  back  to  the  old  Jewish  writers  and  is  not  properly 
ascribable  to  Jesus:  this  was  the  famous  Sermon  on 
the  Mount.  • 

One  side  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  requires  little 
enough  emphasis.  The  dignity,  simplicity  and  beauty 
with  which  the  seventeenth  century  English  trans- 
lation has  clothed  the  Greek  text,  has  made  of  it  one 
of  the  foundation  stones  of  Enghsh  thought.  That 
the  meek,  and  lowly,  and  poor,  that  the  merciful  and 
the  persecuted,  should  have  a  spiritual  compensa- 
tion, touches  human  emotion  so  profoundly  that 
the  thought  requires  no  elaboration.  Might  it  be  de- 
scribed as  an  emotion  of  pity  at  the  wastage  of  na- 
ture and  of  human  society? 

But  what  does  require  emphasis,  for  it  has  been 

given  less  attention,  is  the  logical  conclusion  to  which 

Jesus  was  carried.  If  the  humble,  the  poor  and  the 

persecuted  were  to  inherit  the  kingdom  of  heaven, 

"woe  unto  you  that  are  rich!"  And  note  the  reason: 

"for  you  have  received  your  consolation."  And  again 

"Woe  unto  you  that  are  full,  for  ye  shall  hunger.  .  .  ." 

Now  it  would  be  casuistry  to  argue  that  the  doctrine 

of  Jesus  was  that  wealth  was  equivalent  to  sin,  but  it 

would  be  lacking  in  candour  not  to  declare  that  he 

came  as  near  that  position  as  possible,  and  that  he 

generally  assumed  that  such  was  the  case.  And  even 

if  the  conditions  of  bad  government  in  his  time  and 

country  went  far  to  justify  the  belief  that  it  was 

harder  for  a  rich  man  to  attain  Heaven  than  for  a 


58  THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

camel  to  pass  through  the  eye  of  a  needle,  clearly 
enough  it  was  an  extreme  levelling  doctrine  that  was 
bound  to  bring  him  into  conflict  with  government 
sooner  or  later.  Nor  was  the  doctrine  merely  a  level- 
ling one;  there  was  another  side  to  it. 

This  other  side  is  doctrinal,  and  before  it  can  be 
fairly  stated,  a  digression  is  necessary.  For  the  say- 
ings of  Jesus  as  to  the  future  life,  as  to  reward  and 
punishment,  cannot  be  understood  historically,  with- 
out glancing  for  one  moment  at  the  general  movement 
of  such  beliefs.  This  will  be  summarized  here  under 
the  following  heads:  the  individual  life;  the  idea  of 
Hell;  the  idea  of  Heaven;  immortality. 

There  are  two  broad  currents  of  thought  through 
all  the  ages  as  to  the  individual,  one  subordinating, 
the  other  emphasizing  him.  Where  the  family  or- 
ganization and  the  racial  sense  are  strong,  as  generally 
in  the  tribal  state,  the  individual  is  subordinated. 
He  is  even  in  many  cases  thought  of  as  a  mere  part 
of  a  greater  whole,  the  family,  from  which  his  life 
proceeds  and  into  which  it  merges.  From  such  a 
starting-point  the  future  life  appears  at  first  non- 
individual  and  non-hjeavenly;  for  it  is  the  life  of  the 
collective  group  tlmt^ontinues  the  life  of  its  individual 
member.  The  early  Greeksundoubtedly  held  beliefs  of 
this  kind,  and  even  within  the  historical  period  their 
narrow  little  city-religions  strongly  subordinated  the 
individual  to  his  city.  A  modern  example  may  be 
sougji^  in  the  Japanese  beliefs.  And  it  would  be 
hasty  to  relegate  this  mode  of  thought  to  primitive 
races,    and    thus    conveniently    shelve  the  subject. 


JESUS  59 

For  many  of  the  phenomena  of  psychology  and  of 
physics  studied  at  the  present  day  suggest  that  we 
may  have  carried  the  idea  of  the  four  square,  abso- 
lutely distinct  individual,  a  little  further  than  is  war- 
ranted. At  the  time  of  Christ  it  was  the  later,  in- 
dividual idea  that  prevailed  in  the  Graeco-Asiatic 
world. 

Hell  and  Heaven;  eternal  life;  reward  and  punish- 
ment, —  all  these  are  very  elusive  terms.  They  have 
been  so  variously  interpreted,  even  at  the  same 
epoch  by  members  of  the  same  faith,  that  a  general 
warning  is  necessary  before  discussing  them.  This 
warning  is  that,  unless  it  is  specifically  stated  other- 
wise, these  terms  will  always  be  used  here  in  a  wide 
sense,  and  never  in  a  narrow  theological  one,  never 
in  terms  of  strict  definition.  Speaking  thus  broadly 
it  may  be  said  that  the  idea  of  Hell  is  one  of  the 
most  ancient  of  those  held  by  man ;  that  the  idea  of 
Hell  is  slowly  followed  by  that  of  Heaven,  until  the 
two  form  the  exact  counterpart  of  one  another;  and 
that  finally  the  idea  of  Hell  begins  gradually  to  fade 
away,  leaving  Heaven  to  stand  by  itself,  —  a  process 
the  observant  may  witness  proceeding  fast  at  our 
own  day. 

Hell  in  its  earliest  phases  was  the  region  below 
ground  to  which  the  dead  had  been  relegated,  —  and 
it  was  not  so  unnatural  to  think  of  them  as  existing 
where  their  bodies  had  been  placed.  Hell  in  that  sense 
was  not  a  place  of  torture,  not  the  abode  of  de- 
mons; it  was  merely  a  great  earthy  cupboard  of  Na- 
ture in  which  the  dead  more  or  less  maintained  their 


60  THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

identity.  From  that  starting-point  the  idea  devel- 
oped along  the  ways  of  national  imagination,  or  of 
oracular  priestcraft,  one  way  in  Egypt,  another  way 
in  Greece,  and  yet  another  in  Persia.  One  might  go 
back  for  many  centuries  before  Christ  and  trace  these 
ideas  and  their  influence,  but  it  does  not  seem  neces- 
sary for  the  purpose  in  hand.  It  will  suffice  to  say 
that  among  the  Jews  at  his  time  there  were  two 
schools  of  thought  on  this  matter.  The  Sadducees 
held  the  old-fashioned  view,  based  validly  enough  on 
the  Pentateuch,  that  there  was  a  primitive  sort  of 
Hell,  a  place  in  which  there  was  no  new  life;  and 
they  therefore  disbelieved  in  Heaven.  The  Pharisees 
were  far  less  conservative.  They  had  taken  over  new 
ideas,  borrowing  very  largely  from  the  Egyptians, 
Greeks  and  Persians  in  the  matter  of  the  future 
life  and  of  good  and  bad  angels,  and  they  were  now 
wedded  to  a  full-fledged  doctrine  of  reward  and 
punishment,  of  Heaven  and  Hell. 

It  was  that  doctrine  which  Jesus,  naturally  enough, 
accepted,  and  it  was  the  inevitable  consequence  of 
his  gospel  of  the  poor.  This  is  no  matter  of  the  inter- 
pretation of  this  or  that  convenient  text,  but  of  the 
large  and  consistent  meaning  of  his  preaching  viewed 
as  a  whole,  taken  in  text  after  text,  in  parable  after 
parable.  And  his  insistence  on  punishment  is  as  great 
as  his  insistence  on  reward;  and  through  it  there 
breathes  a  flame  and  points  a  sword  that  recall  the 
fire  and  destruction  with  which  Joshua  had  visited 
the  Canaanites  more  than  a  thousand  years  before. 

This,  then,  was  the  teaching  of  Jesus,  the  gospel  of 


JESUS  61 

suffering  humanity  against  the  rich  oppressor,  the  pro- 
mise of  a  future  reward  and  punishment,  based  on  a 
judgment  between  sin  and  virtue,  between  present 
affliction  and  present  enjoyment.  It  was  a  doctrine 
fit  for  the  country  and  the  times;  and  it  was  preached 
with  a  faith  and  conviction  that  shook  Palestine  so 
profoundly  that  the  world  is  even  now  under  its  in- 
fluence. And  this  brings  us  to  another  aspect  of  this 
teaching,  the  faith  and  conviction  that  lay  behind  it, 
and  the  marvels  which  that  faith  accomplished. 

It  would  seem  probable  that  the  intuitional  facul- 
ties of  Jesus  were  exceptionally  developed,  and  were 
happily  blended  with  an  intellectual  keenness  to 
which  his  utterances  bear  sufficient  witness.  Again 
it  may  be  surmised  that  this  intuitional  side  of  his  na- 
ture was  developed  by  introspection  and  by  asceti- 
cism. Perhaps  he  had  been  influenced  by  the  teaching 
of  followers  of  Buddha,  or  had  learnt  the  myster- 
ies of  faith  healing  and  suggestion  from  some  magic- 
working  traveller  of  the  desert.  Be  this  as  it  may, 
there  is  no  valid  reason  for  rejecting  the  supposition 
that  he  had  in  some  way  developed  great  psychical 
power  and  that  an  essential  part  of  his  ministry  was 
healing  the  sick. 

This  healing  of  the  sick  was  faith-healing;  we  have  it 
from  his  own  lips.  At  Capernaum  the  servant  of  the 
centurion  is  healed  because  of  his  faith:  "Verily  I  say 
unto  you,  I  have  not  found  so  great  faith,  no,  not  in 
Israel.  ...  Go  thy  way,  and  as  thou  hast  believed 
so  be  it  done  unto  thee."  And  in  one  of  the  docu- 
ments recently  recovered  in  Egypt  he  is  made  to  say: 


62  THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

"Neither  does  a  physician  work  cures  on  them  that 
know  him,"  —  the  utterance  of  a  psychologist  fa- 
mihar  with  the  deeper  workings  of  human  nature, 
accustomed  to  play  on  the  imagination  of  men. 

But  if  Jesus  had  indeed  skilled  himself  in  such 
powers  as  these,  he  turned  their  use  always  in  the  di- 
rection of  his  mission  of  charity.  One  scene  ^  in  which 
the  two  elements  blend  stands  out  in  bold  relief,  —  a 
scene  more  clear  and  convincing  in  its  peculiarity  of 
circumstance  than  many  others  in  the  account  of 
the  synoptists.  Irresistibly  drawn,  Jesus  had  reached 
Jerusalem.  His  struggle  with  the  Pharisees  had  entered 
the  acute  stage;  and  they  were  trying  to  trap  him 
into  a  false  step.  One  day  they  brought  to  the  Tem- 
ple and  placed  before  him  a  woman  who  had  been 
taken  in  adultery;  and  they  asked:  what  shall  be 
done  unto  her? 

Now  the  precise  nature  of  the  difficulty  was  this. 
The  Jewish  law,  on  which  the  Sanhedrin  was  the 
final  authority,  —  and  the  Sanhedrin  was  mostly 
Pharisee  in  its  composition,  —  declared  that  the  pun- 
ishment for  this  offence  was  stoning  to  death.  But 
Judsea  was  now  under  a  Roman  Prsetor,  and  the  Ro- 
man government,  although  it  permitted  the  Jewish 
law  to  be  enforced  under  certain  conditions,  would 
not  allow  the  Sanhedrin  to  judge  such  an  offence  and 
apply  the  death-penalty;  that  would  be  a  matter  for 
the  Prsetor  himself.  So  the  dilemma  was  this:  either 
Jesus  must  evade  declaring  that  the  woman  should 

^  It  is  not  given  In  the  best  Greek  manuscripts,  but  that  is  not 
a  conclusive  reason  for  rejecting  it. 


JESUS  63 

be. atoned  to  death,  in  which  case  he  clearly  failed  in 
his  interpretation  of  the  Scriptures,  or  else  he  must 
pronounce  the  correct  sentence  and  come  into  con- 
flict with  the  Roman  authorities. 

Once  before  he  had  skilfully  parried  a  similar  at- 
tack, when  asked  whether  tribute  was  lawfully  due  to 
Rome,  by  the  answer:  "Render  unto  Csesar  the  things 
that  are  Caesar's  and  unto  God  the  things  that  are 
God's."  Now  he  was  again  skilful,  and  something 
more.  Imagine  the  scene:  a  woman  caught  in  a 
shameful  act  and  carried  along  by  a  crowd  of  men. 
She  stands  before  them  defenceless,  under  immedi- 
ate threat  of  a  terrifying  death.  And  questions  are 
shouted  at  the  peasant  prophet  who  stands  under  the 
porch  of  the  Temple :  what  is  to  be  done  with  this  wo- 
man? The  answer  was  surprising,  was  probably 
intended  to  surprise:  "Jesus  stooped  down,  and  with 
his  finger  wrote  on  the  ground,  as  though  he  heard 
them  not."  For  some  minutes  he  held  them  still  in  that 
way,  then,  looking  up,  gave  them  his  unanswerable 
retort:  "He  that  is  without  sin  among  you,  let  him 
first  cast  a  stone  at  her."  And  after  this  he  resumed 
his  mysterious  occupation,  suggestive  of  magic  and 
of  the  unknown.  Under  this  spell,  moral,  intellect- 
ual and  psychological,  the  woman's  accusers  gradually 
melted  away  from  the  force  which  they  felt  but  could 
not  understand.  And  finally  Jesus,  perhaps  exhausted 
by  his  effort  and  careless  of  the  rest,  merely  said  to 
the  woman:  "Go,  and  sin  no  more."  Surely  in  that 
scene  was  concentrated  all  that  was  most  remark- 
able in  Jesus;  to  a  modern  mind  it  must  surely  re- 


64  THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

main  the  most  convincing  and  the  greatest  of  his 
miracles. 

His  conflict  with  the  Pharisees  came  to  a  head  very 
rapidly,  and  could  have  but  one  termination.  He 
had  offended  them  from  the  first.  He  had  never 
spared  them.  As  his  following  grew  he  sent  out  agents 
to  spread  his  views,  and  he  attacked  the  Pharisees 
more  and  more  vigorously.  He  entered  their  syna- 
gogues to  expose  them,  and  he  finally  proceeded  to 
their  stronghold,  the  Sacred  City  itself,  Jerusalem. 
As  to  the  precise  facts  about  the  visit  or  visits  of  Je- 
sus to  Jerusalem  the  New  Testament  account  is  con- 
fused and  contradictory.  Fortunately  all  that  need 
concern  us  here  is  their  general  outline. 

When  Jesus  went  up  to  Jerusalem  to  celebrate  his 
last  Passover,  he  was  undoubtedly  in  fear  of  his  life. 
Stripping  the  narrative  of  elements  of  which  the  un- 
reliability will  be  shown  presently,  we  are  left  with  a 
human,  touching  picture  of  his  mental  agonies  and 
uncertainty  during  those  few  days  of  struggle  and  de- 
feat. At  times  it  looks  as  though  he  anticipated  his 
failure  and  death,  as  when  he  says:  "I  am  the  good 
shepherd;  the  good  shepherd  giveth  his  life  for  the 
sheep";  or  again:  "Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  you, 
except  a  grain  of  wheat  fall  into  the  ground  and  die, 
it  abideth  alone :  but  if  it  die  it  bringeth  forth  much 
fruit."  ^  For  the  rest  it  was  a  struggle  to  maintain  his 

^  It  is  with  grave  misgiving  that  these  two  quotations  are  used  ; 
the  first  is  probably  connected  with  Persian  or  Indian  astronom- 
ical cult  ideas,  the  latter  points  straight  to  the  rites  of  Adonis, 
of  which  more  later. 


JESUS  '65 

moral  hold  on  his  followers,  who  at  times  seemed  to 
promise  him  a  real  triumph,  as  on  the  day  of  his  ar- 
rival at  Jerusalem  when  they  acclaimed  him  as  the 
Son  of  David.  To  turn  back  would  be  to  acknow- 
ledge defeat,  to  go  on  threatened  death.  And  so  he 
went  on,  but  in  doubt  and  mental  agony. 

At  the  last  supper  with  his  disciples,  a  rite  already 
in  vogue  among  unorthodox  Jews,  **he  was  troubled 
in  spirit  and  testified,  and  said:  —  Verily,  verily,  I  say 
unto  you  that  one  of  you  shall  betray  me."  And  later 
that  night,  while  wandering  among  the  hills  that  en- 
circle the  city,  momentarily  expecting  arrest,  "  he 
began  to  be  sorrowful  and  very  heavy.  Then  saith  he 
unto  them :  My  soul  is  exceeding  sorrowful,  even  unto 
death.  .  .  .  O  my  Father,  if  it  be  possible  let  this 
cup  pass  from  me.  .  .  ." 

It  is  perhaps  at  this  point  that  a  narrative  aiming 
at  historical  veracii^^  should  stop.  The  accounts  of 
the  judgment  and  crucifixion  of  Jesus  are  almost  cer- 
tainly myths  reproducing  popular  ceremonies  and  be- 
liefs. Yet  a  shred  of  doubt  remains,  and  on  this  shred 
of  doubt,  the  narrative  will  be  carried  as  far  as  it  may 
be  legitimately,  and  for  what  it  is  worth. 

On  the  following  day  Jesus  was  brought  before  the 
Sanhedrin,  presided  over  by  the  High  Priest  Caiaphas. 
The  usual  battle  of  scriptural  interpretation  was 
fought,  with  a  view  to  fastening  the  crime  of  blas- 
phemy and  false  prophecy  on  Jesus .  *  'Art  thou  the  Son 
of  God,  that  is  the  Messiah?  "  Caiaphas  asked  him. 
"Ye  say  that  I  am,"  replied  Jesus;  on  which  the  High 
Priest  and  elders  rent  their  clothes,  and  declared  the 


66  THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

blasphemy  pronounced.  So  runs  the  synoptic  account, 
showing  that  the  disputation  was  of  an  interpretative 
theological  character,  though  little  is  said  as  to  its  real 
incidents.  Jesus,  at  all  events,  held  fast  to  the  ground 
he  had  taken  as  a  prophet  of  Israel,  and  that  was 
enough  to  condemn  him. 

But  that  condemnation  could  lead  to  no  result 
without  the  concurrence  of  the  Roman  Prsetor,  Pon- 
tius Pilate :  so  Jesus  was  carried  before  the  represent- 
ative of  the  Emperor  Tiberius.  How  striking  a  scene 
when  we  remember  the  two  thousand  years  that  fol- 
lowed :  the  three  centuries  of  Imperial  Rome,  the  sev- 
enteen centuries  of  Papal  Rome!  How  little  could 
the  Roman  judge  and  the  Jewish  prophet,  standing 
there  face  to  face,  foresee  that  the  political  and  the 
religious  ideas  each  stood  for  were  to  be  blended  to- 
gether three  centuries  later,  and  hand  in  hand  were  to 
come  down  through  countless  centuries,  the  greatest 
organized  force  of  western  civilization! 

Pilate  was  very  reluctant  to  accede  to  the  wishes 
of  the  Sanhedrin.  He  questioned  Jesus,  and  was  fa- 
vourably impressed  with  his  replies.  "My  kingdom 
is  not  of  this  world,"  he  said.  "To  this  end  was  I 
born  that  I  should  bear  witness  unto  the  truth."  But 
the  Pharisees  made  vigourous  demonstrations,  and 
the  Prsetor  decided  that  the  politic  thing  would  be  to 
let  the  Sanhedrin  have  its  way,  so  he  ordered  Jesus 
to  be  executed,  as  the  Jewish  law  demanded. 

Late  in  the  afternoon  he  was  taken  to  the  hill  of 
Golgotha,  outside  the  city,  and  there  was  crucified,  — 
a  painful  form  of  capital  punishment  usually  involv- 


JESUS  67 

ing  a  long  drawn  out  and  lingering  death.  Only  one 
sentence  has  been  preserved  of  anything  Jesus  may 
have  said  on  the  cross;  it  was,  "My  God,  my  God, 
why  hast  thou  forsaken  me?"  —  and  it  told  the  story 
of  his  defeat  at  the  hands  of  the  Pharisees.  At  night- 
fall one  of  his  followers,  a  member  of  the  Sanhedrin 
whose  name  was  Joseph  of  Arimathea,  went  to  Pilate 
and  asked  leave  to  take  down  the  body.  "Pilate  mar- 
velled if  he  were  already  dead,"  but  gave  the  desired 
permission. 

Jesus  was  removed  from  the  cross  at  night,  and 
placed  in  a  grotto  in  the  garden  of  Gethsemane.  As  to 
what  followed,  the  accounts  of  the  Gospels  are  so  con- 
fused and  contradictory,  oscillate  so  violently  from 
a  natural  to  a  miraculous  interpretation,  that  it  is 
difficult  to  advance  anything  that  will  bear  the  mark 
of  historical  probability.  These  facts  will  receive  no- 
tice in  another  connection  later;  for  the  moment  all 
that  can  be  added  as  to  Jesus  is  that  possibly  he  was 
seen  again,  probably  in  Galilee,  but  that  his  mission 
was  really  at  an  end.  He  had  preached  the  doctrine 
of  humanity,  he  had  given  his  life  for  it,  and  he  had 
associated  yet  other  things  with  his  name,  from  all 
of  which,  a  few  years  later,  an  edifice  was  to  be  con- 
structed that  was  eventually  to  be  known  as  Christ- 
ianity. "Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  you,  except  a 
grain  of  wheat  fall  into  the  ground  and  die  it  abideth 
alone:  but  if  it  die  it  bringeth  forth  much  fruit." 


CHAPTER  V 

PAUL 

The  crucifixion  of  Jesus  took  place  in  a  remote 
corner  of  the  great  Roman  Empire,  and  passed  unno- 
ticed by  contemporary  writers.^  It  was  not  until 
after  another  thirty  or  forty  years  that  the  life  of 
Christ  came  to  be  written,  and  that  under  conditions 
far  from  satisfactory.  But  before  coming  to  the  tan- 
gled maze  of  the  early  Christian  writings  and  beliefs, 
let  us  first  take  a  general  glance  at  the  great  political 
fabric  within  the  bounds  of  which  they  were  formed. 

Rome  has  so  far  figured  but  little  in  these  pages. 
It  was  noted  that  at  the  period  of  the  Babylonian 
Captivity  she  had  not  yet  obtained  a  footing  in  the 
annals  of  history.  During  the  two  centuries  of  the 
Persian  Empire,  the  Republic  grew  rapidly  in  power, 
and  when  Alexander  built  the  new  Greek  Empire, 
Rome  was  obtaining  the  mastery  of  central  Italy. 
Half  a  century  later  the  Carthaginian  war  was  under- 
taken, and  the  final  triumph  of  Zama  in  202  B.C.  left 
Rome,  almost  suddenly,  the  greatest  power  of  the 
Mediterranean.^  From  that  moment  the  conquest 
of  the  East  engrossed  her  efforts.   The  Greek  mon- 

^  Several  allusions  of  the  sort  are  now  admitted  to  be  forgeries. 

2  Zama  marks  the  close  of  Carthaginian  power,  though  it  was 
not  until  half  a  century  later  that  Scipio  destroyed  the  city  of 
Carthage. 


PAUL  69 

archies,  offshoots  of  the  empire  of  Alexander,  were 
conquered  one  by  one,  and  the  Asiatic  monarchies  of 
Asia  Minor.  So  that  by  the  beginning  of  the  Christ- 
ian era  Rome  held  western  Europe,  the  Balkan  pen- 
insula, the  greater  part  of  Asia  Minor,  Syria,  Pales- 
tine and  Egypt. 

To  the  east  of  this  great  Mediterranean  empire 
lay  a  hostile  region.  The  conquest  of  Alexander  had 
been  weakest  along  the  northern  border  that  lay  be- 
tween the  Caspian  and  Kashmir,  and  the  Seleucids, 
who  inherited  from  him,  had  very  soon  to  face  a  Par- 
thian or  Persian  danger.  As  their  power  crumbled, 
and  that  very  fast  after  the  beginning  of  the  second 
century  B.C.,  a  Parthian  state  had  arisen,  and,  as  the 
generals  of  the  Republic  pushed  their  way  further 
east  from  their  conquest  of  Asia  Minor,  had  come 
into  sharp  conflict  with  Rome.  It  was  fated  that 
Rome  should  never  hold  the  lower  valley  of  the  Eu- 
phrates, and  there  a  hostile  bar  was  raised  against 
her  that  she  never  could  overcome. 

The  constitution  of  Rome  was  hardly  strong  enough 
to  support  the  vast  edifice  she  built;  but  her  military 
virtues  and  organization,  her  practical  talent  for  ad- 
ministration, succeeded  for  a  while  in  making  good 
the  deficiency.  The  great  era  of  Roman  conquest 
had  been  marked  by  the  formation  of  vast  and  power- 
ful armies,  and  by  the  struggles  of  the  leaders  of  those 
armies  for  supreme  power.  Civil  war  had  gone  hand 
in  hand  with  foreign  conquest,  and  out  of  the  burning 
crucible  of  armies  and  kingdoms  Caesar  and  Augustus 
had  succeeded,  only  a  very  few  years  before  the  birth 


70  THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

of  Jesus,  in  imposing  on  the  Republic  a  military  but 
veiled  autocracy.  And  side  by  side  with  this  march 
of  conquest  had  gone  a  huge  extension  of  slavery. 

From  the  earliest  epoch  to  the  time  of  Christ  slav- 
ery may  be  said  to  have  steadily  increased  in  the  Med- 
iterranean world .  In  the  primitive  days  of  Greece,  and 
later  of  Rome,  slavery  was  little  more  than  the  ordi- 
nary incident  of  warfare;  but  as  political  power  and 
private  luxury  increased,  it  took  on  a  larger  aspect. 
Athens,  at  the  period  of  her  prosperity,  had  many 
more  slaves  than  freemen;  while  five  hundred  years 
later,  under  the  first  Roman  emperors,  the  institu- 
tion took  on  gigantic,  almost  incredible,  proportions; 
it  was  the  basis  of  organized  society.  From  the  mo- 
ment when  Rome  entered  on  her  conquest  of  the  East 
two  outstanding  facts  marked  her  wars:  they  were 
directed  towards  financial  plunder  and  the  financial 
betterment  of  the  Italian  legionaries;  they  were  inci- 
dentally huge  slave  drives. 

Unfortunately  we  have  but  a  scant  record  of  the 
countless  millions  reduced  to  social  inferiority  by  the 
conquests  of  Rome.  Our  direct  records  come  from 
the  higher  classes,  our  histories,  unfortunately,  al- 
most always  from  the  governing  classes.  So  that  it  is 
only  by  an  effort  of  the  imagination,  and  at  the  risk 
which  that  implies,  that  we  can  reconstitute  certain 
conditions  that  this  state  of  slavery  brought  about. 
And  it  should  not  be  forgotten  in  this  connection  that 
at  the  time  of  Christ  the  value  of  slaves  varied  enor- 
mously with  their  quality;  mere  ploughmen  were  gen- 
erally a  drug  on  the  market,  while  intelligent  crafts- 


PAUL  71 

men,  practitioners,  writers  and  beautiful  women  and 
children  fetched  large  sums.  In  the  great  houses  of 
Rome  these  slaves  of  high  quality  abounded.  Let 
us  sum  up  by  saying  that  for  centuries,  a  large  and 
very  select  part  of  the  population  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean had  been  reduced  to  slavery  by  the  accident 
of  war;  and  this  at  a  time  when  a  great  increase  of 
peaceful  commercial  intercourse,  and  the  humaniz- 
ing influence  of  Greek  culture  were  fast  advancing 
civilization.  What  was  the  result.?  Will  it  be  too  bold 
to  say  that  as  this  wholesale  degradation  became 
intensified,  an  ethical  unrest,  disquietude,  slowly 
arose,  unconscious  and  unrealized  at  first,  yet  a  deep 
influence  in  moulding  men's  minds  to  the  great  relig- 
ious change  that  was  impending.?  This  line  of  thought 
must  not  be  followed  for  the  present  into  the  field  of 
Greek  literature,  in  which  Zeno  and  the  Alexandrians 
must  soon  claim  our  attention,  but  the  city  life  of 
the  Empire,  and  particularly  of  the  populous  East 
must  first  be  noticed. 

Following  the  example  of  Persians  and  Greeks, 
the  Romans  planted  colonies.  They  not  only  founded 
cities  about  the  nucleus  of  an  Italian  legion,  but 
eventually  extended  the  privilege  of  Roman  citizen- 
ship to  favoured  individuals  or  towns.  The  result  of 
this,  following  similar  processes  of  the  ante-Roman 
period,  was  somewhat  curious.  Whereas  Italy  was  a 
fairly  homogeneous  latinized  country,  and  Greece  with 
Macedonia  an  even  more  homogeneous  Greek  coun- 
try, Asia  Minor  presented  a  patchwork  quilt  effect 
of  tribes,  nations,  cults  and  cities.  Many  cities  were 


72  THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

almost  purely  Greek;  among  these  some  were  distin- 
guished by  the  grant  of  Roman  privileges;  a  few  were 
Roman  foundations;  in  some  the  older  Asiatic  races 
prevailed;  in  all  there  were  communities  of  Greeks 
and  communities  of  Jews;  while  here  and  there  a  re- 
mote Asiatic  contingent,  planted  by  the  Persians,  still 
remained. 

In  these  Asiatic  cities  Greek  had  long  been  the  su- 
perior language,  and  this  was  not  altered  by  the  Ro- 
man conquest.  The  Jews,  too,  had  accepted  the  fact, 
had  often  enough  changed  their  names  into  Greek 
forms,  just  as  at  the  present  day  they  use  German  or 
Polish  or  any  other  convenient  patronymics.  Most 
of  these  cities  had  cleverly  trimmed  their  sails  as  the 
legions  marched  into  them,  had  succeeded  in  buying  off 
the  threatened  devastation,  and  had  gently  shifted 
off  one  yoke  and  slipped  another  on.  There  was 
economic  activity  among  them :  on  one  side  the  Med- 
iterranean with  Rome  and  her  western  provinces, 
greedy  for  all  forms  of  Oriental  luxury;  on  the  other 
the  east  to  which  the  Persian  monarchs  had  opened 
one  great  road  from  Ephesus  to  the  valley  of  the  Eu- 
phrates so  early  as  the  fifth  century  before  Christ. 
Art  and  literature  flourished;  and  at  Athens,  Tarsus, 
and  Alexandria,  were  what  would  be  described  in 
modern  parlance  as  the  three  great  universities  of  the 
Mediterranean  world. 

Thus  a  curious  result  came  about.  From  the  shores 
of  the  Black  Sea  to  the  river  Nile  about  Thebes, 
the  Asiatic  part  of  the  Roman  world  was,  as  it  still 
is  to-day,  a  conglomerate  of  many  races  and  creeds 


PAUL  73 

that  retained  their  special  groupings/  Yet  through 
them  all  ran  unifying  tendencies.  Trade  was  highly 
developed,  and  largely  in  the  hands  of  Greeks  and 
Jews.  War  was  no  longer  local  but  imperial.  Lan- 
guage was  international.  Religion,  in  the  older  local 
forms,  had  broken  down  badly,  while  no  form  suited 
to  the  new  conditions  had  yet  been  evolved.  As  to 
religion,  however,  this  may  be  added,  that  two  great 
tendencies  were  manifest:  one  was  to  seek  for  an  eth- 
ical, humane  basis;  the  other  was  to  concentrate  the 
Roman  cults  on  the  person  of  that  new  constitutional 
creation,  the  Imperator,  or  Emperor. 

Let  us  come  now  more  particularly  to  Palestine 
and  to  the  forty  years,  more  or  less,  that  passed  be- 
tween the  death  of  Christ  and  the  destruction  of  Je- 
rusalem by  Titus  in  a.d.  70. 

First  let  us  see  the  political  conditions.  The  na- 
tionalistic movements  among  the  Jews  continued 
without  interruption.  False  prophets  arose,  and  fell. 
The  Sanhedrin  resented  the  gradual  encroachment 
of  Rome  and  kept  striving  for  a  national  resurrection. 
Judsea  was  added  to  the  Palestinian  vassal  kingdom 
of  Herod  Agrippa  I  by  the  Emperor  Claudius  in  a.d. 
41.  Three  years  later  Herod  died,  and  Claudius,  re- 
versing his  policy,  converted  the  kingdom  into  a  Ro- 
man province.  Nine  years  later  Herod  Agrippa  II 
was  permitted  to  take  over  the  government,  but  his 
education  and  views  were  purely  Roman,  and  the 
Jews  did  not  find  in  him  a  national  king.  The  situa- 
tion became  more  and  more  acute.  In  64  took  place 
the  first  persecution  of  the  Christians  at  Rome  under 


74  THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

the  Emperor  Nero,  and  these  Christians  were  doubt- 
less for  the  most  part  hellenized  Jews.  In  QQ  Judsea 
rose  in  arms  against  Rome,  and  for  four  years  a  strug- 
gle was  maintained,  which  was  terminated  by  the  cap- 
ture of  Jerusalem,  at  the  Passover  of  the  year  70, 
by  Titus.  Great  numbers  of  its  inhabitants  perished; 
many  were  sent  as  slaves  to  Rome  and  elsewhere; 
others  escaped  to  Babylonia,  where  the  Jewish  popu- 
lation was  large,  and  there  formed  an  element  from 
which  important  religious  influences  were  to  proceed 
later. 

During  this  period  how  were  the  doctrines  of  Jesus 
continued.^  It  appears  as  though  immediately  after 
his  death  there  was  a  small  band  of  unorthodox  Jews 
located  at  Jerusalem  professing  the  cult  of  Jesus  as 
the  redeemer  god  and  practising  the  rites  of  baptism 
and  the  communion  supper.  Among  them  the  lead 
was  taken  by  Peter,  who  according  to  the  Gospel,  was 
first  among  the  disciples  to  proclaim  Jesus  the  Christ, 
the  son  of  the  hving  God.  Their  common  basis  seems 
to  have  been  faith  in  the  divine  mission  of  Jesus,  and 
in  his  gospel  of  the  poor.  This  Jewish  community 
appears  further  to  have  put  this  gospel  to  the  test  of 
practice  by  establishing  community  of  goods  among 
themselves.  Their  creed  was  curious  but  well  de- 
fined. 

They  believed  that  Jesus  was  the  Christ  who  should 
accomplish  those  Messianic  prophecies  which  their 
sacred  books  contained  in  such  variety.  But  the  polit- 
ical conditions  of  their  time,  and  the  actual  course  of 
the  prophetic  career  of  Jesus,  led  them  to  a  new  in- 


PAUL  75 

terpretation  of  these  prophecies  in  which  were  blended 
non- Jewish  concepts ;  for  his  Kingdom  was  not  of  this 
world  but  of  the  world  to  come.  Textual  interpreta- 
tion of  the  Old  Testament  soon  adapted  itself  to  this 
metamorphosis.  From  the  world  to  come  he  was, 
therefore,  soon  to  return,  and  then  to  establish  his 
reign  upon  earth;  —  which  went  beyond  any  of  the 
Messianic  prophecies.  This  fabric  of  doctrine  was 
strongly  supported  on  a  foundation  of  miracles;  and 
it  may  be  noted  that  in  the  book  of  the  Acts  of  the 
Apostles  Peter  is  always  supporting  his  utterances  by 
miracles,  and  that  his  record  of  achievement  in  that 
matter  surpasses  that  of  Jesus  himself. 

One  particular  of  this  doctrine  brings  us  to  the  point 
at  which  the  composite  element  of  what  was  soon  to 
become  Christianity,  may  be  fairly  said  to  begin,  as 
far  as  the  Christian  sacred  books  are  concerned.  The 
Messianic  idea  was  Jewish;  the  second  coming  was 
also  in  a  way  Jewish, —  evolved  by  the  followers  of 
Jesus  ;^  but  the  idea  of  the  resurrection  was  compos- 
ite. It  reposed  in  part  perhaps  on  some  actual  inci- 
dents of  the  close  of  the  life  of  Jesus,  but  it  also  re- 
posed on  one  of  the  most  ancient  religious  ideas  of 
Asia,  which  the  inhabitants  of  Palestine  and  the  less 
orthodox  part  of  the  Jews  themselves  had  held  during 
along  period.  That  idea,  by  subtle  and  shght  de- 
grees, slipped  into  the  new-forming  religion. 

1  In  its  first  form  this  idea  may  well  have  been  merely  that  he 
would  return  from  Galilee  where  he  had  gone  after  the  escape 
from  the  tomb  in  the  garden  of  Gethsemane.  Later  the  analogous 
ideas  in  the  cults  of  Mithra  or  Adonis  would  doubtless  blend  in. 


76  THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

The  cult  of  the  Jewish  Jehovah,  as  already  pointed 
out,  was  a  peculiar  one.  It  was  lofty  in  its  singleness, 
in  its  ethical  standard,  in  its  uncompromising  exclus- 
iveness;  yet  it  was  narrow,  diflScult,  intensely  na- 
tionalistic. Only  a  chosen  residue  of  the  Jews  had 
held  to  it  from  the  days  of  the  conquest  to  those  of 
Caiaphas;  and  it  was  imbedded  in  the  midst  of  the 
Semitic  beliefs  that  had  continued  from  immemorial 
times  among  the  earlier  inhabitants  of  Palestine. 
These  beliefs  were  always  prevalent  among  the  great 
mass  of  Jews  who  intermarried  with  other  Semites, 
or  who  in  other  ways  lost  their  close  hold  on  the  re- 
ligion of  Jehovah. 

Among  the  most  important  of  these  Semitic  deities 
we  find  Baal  ^  in  the  early  period,  Tammuz  in  the 
later.  Baalbek,  just  north  of  Palestine,  was  one  of 
the  greatest  centres  of  the  Semitic  cults  after  the  fall 
of  Babylon;  and  perhaps  the  Persian  influence  devel- 
oped there,  during  the  fifth  and  fourth  century,  the 
attributes  and  worship  of  the  Sun  God.  Under  the 
Seleucids  the  Greeks  built  some  of  their  greatest  tem- 
ples at  Baalbek,  which  they  called  Heliopolis,  and 
the  temple  of  the  Sun  which  they  erected  was  one  of 
the  supreme  achievements  of  later  Greek  art. 

Tammuz  also  was  hellenized.  He  was  Adon  Tam- 
muz, the  Lord  Tammuz,  and  the  Greeks,  fastening 
on  the  prefix,  called  him  Adonis.  The  cult  of  Adonis 
was  probably  the  dominant  hellenized  Asiatic  cult, 

^  Strictly  speaking  Baal  is  god,  and  should  be  followed  by  a 
descriptive  epithet,  but  he  will  concern  us  so  little  that  it  will  be 
unnecessary  to  particularize. 


PAUL  77 

at  the  time  of  Christ,  of  the  country  on  both  sides 
of  Jerusalem;  its  two  great  centres  were  Byblos  at  the 
foot  of  Lebanon,  and  Alexandria,  the  largest  centre 
of  the  Jews  after  Jerusalem. 

The  cult  of  Tammuz,  or  of  Adonis,  as  he  may  better 
be  called,  had  at  its  foundations  the  great  mystery  of 
nature,  death  and  life.  At  times  this  was  associated 
with  the  idea  of  the  decline  of  the  sun  at  the  winter 
solstice  and  its  springing  up  again.  But  here  we  are 
concerned  chiefly  with  the  central  ceremony  of  the 
cult,  which  shows  clearly  enough  its  associated  ideas. 
Once  a  year  the  god  died.  The  women,  wailing  over 
his  beauty,  then  took  his  eflSgy,  washed  it,  anointed 
it  with  spices  and  myrrh,  and  buried  it.  Wheat  and 
other  seed  were  then  sown,  a  rite  of  which  the  signi- 
ficance appears  clearly  from  the  very  words  attributed 
to  Christ:  "Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  you,  except  a 
grain  of  wheat  fall  into  the  ground  and  die,  it  abideth 
alone;  but  if  it  die  it  bringeth  forth  much  fruit."  The 
grain  sent  up  a  plant,  perhaps  by  the  same  trick 
as  modern  Indian  jugglers  play  with  the  mango,  and 
the  resurrection  of  Adonis  took  place  within  a  few 
days,  when  he  was  supposed  to  ascend  to  heaven  in 
the  presence  of  his  worshippers.  In  Syria  the  fest- 
ival appears  to  have  occurred  in  the  late  spring  or 
early  summer,  —  say  about  Whitsuntide. 

There  are  other  details  of  the  cult  of  Adonis  that 
are  not  in  point  in  the  present  connection,  and  are 
therefore  not  noticed,  but  a  few  matters  of  more 
doubtful  significance  deserve  mention.  Ishtar,  the 
great  goddess  of  generation  of  the  Babylonians  and 


78  THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

Canaanites,  the  Astarte  of  the  Greeks,  was  supposed 
to  be  wedded  to  young  and  beautiful  Tammuz;  she 
was  also  identified  with  the  morning  or  evening  star. 
Now  note  that  although  Jesus  is  very  consistently 
treated  by  himself  and  others  as  a  man  of  Nazareth, 
a  pious  hand,  anxious  to  prove  certain  Messianic  pro- 
phecies, inserted  in  the  synoptic  gospels  the  story 
of  the  birth  of  Christ  in  the  city  of  Bethlehem, 
marked  by  the  rise  of  a  star  in  heaven.  But  Bethle- 
hem was  not  only  the  city  of  David,  which  accorded 
with  the  Jewish  prophecy;  it  was  also  according  to  St. 
Jerome,  a  seat  of  the  cult  of  Adonis,  which  accords 
with  something  very  different.^  It  may  further  be 
noticed  as  something  more  than  curious  that  the 
Easter  ceremonies  of  the  Greek  Church  at  the  pre- 
sent day  turn  on  the  burial  of  an  effigy  of  Jesus  in  a 
manner  that  coincides  very  nearly  with  the  ceremon- 
ies performed  over  th^  dea(}  Adonis  two  thousand 
years  ago. 

But  no  ceremony  can  ever  equal  in  importance 
the  idea  that  shelters  behind  it.  In  the  first  century 
of  the  Christian  era  there  was  more  to  be  read  in- 
to the  mystery  of  the  resurrection  of  Adonis  than 
the  symbolizing  of  the  constant  death  and  rebirth 
of  nature.  Humanity  had  become  self-conscious. 
Intercourse  and  trade  had  made  man  less  destruc- 
tive.    The   influence   of   woman    had   grown   with 

*  See  Frazer,  Adonis,  Attis,  Osiris,  passim.  For  the  star,  see 
further  the  interesting  passage  [p.  157]  referring  to  the  occa- 
sion of  the  Emperor  Julian's  visit  to  Antioch.  This  cult  was 
known  to  the  Greeks  in  the  seventh  century  B.C. 


PAUL  79 

great  rapidity.  There  was  a  latent  reaction  against 
the  horrors  of  warfare,  the  degradation  of  slavery; 
and  an  aspiration  towards  a  loftier  cult  in  which  man 
would  find  a  higher  self  expression.  In  all  this  the 
wonderful  art  of  the  Greeks  played  its  part.  It  based 
its  standard  of  beauty  on  reality,  on  man  seen  as  man, 
and  could  portray  the  dead  Adonis  as  man  in  all  that 
was  most  beautiful,  held  in  the  arms  of  sorrowing 
Astarte.  That  sentiment  of  pity,  of  pity  at  the  waste 
of  beauty,  and  life,  and  love,  was  a  sentiment  that  cut 
deep  into  human  hearts,  and  deeper  when  applied 
not  to  the  mythical  Adonis  but  to  the  real  Jesus. 
And  if  any  reader  needs  persuasion  let  him  go  to  St. 
Peter's  at  Rome  and  look  at  the  Pieta  of  Michael 
Angelo.  For  there,  to-day,  is  Astarte  still  mourning 
over  the  dead  Adonis  in  her  arms,  or  rather  Mary 
mourning  over  Christ,  half  virgin,  half  mother,  wholly 
beautiful,  compassionate,  and  comforting.  The  great 
Catholic  sculptor  has  only  expressed  with  overpower- 
ing genius  what  his  Greek  predecessors  were  express- 
ing fifteen  "hundred  years  before  to  a  not  irresponsive 
world. 

This  digression  has  been  long,  yet  necessary  for 
realizing  certain  aspects  of  the  Roman  world  in  the 
first  century  ;  we  must  now  turn  back  to  the  little 
community  at  Jerusalem  that  Peter  led.  If  what  has 
just  been  written  concerning  the  cult  of  Adonis  has 
any  force,  it  may  then  be  added  that  in  its  beliefs 
this  community  shows  signs  that  it  was  blending  the 
facts  that  marked  the  death  of  Jesus  with  the  pre- 
valent cult  of  its  own  age  and  country.  The  process 


80  THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

was  a  perfectly  natural  one,  easy  to  parallel  even  at 
the  present  day;  and  the  evidence  for  it  is  to  be  found 
in  a  careful  and  dispassionate  reading  of  the  synoptic 
gospels  and  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles.  The  almost  uni- 
versal cult  of  a  redeemer  god  was  being  incorporated, 
in  its  Palestinian  form,  with  unorthodox  Hebraism. 

While  Peter,  therefore,  preached  the  redeemer 
Jesus  to  the  Jews,  and  while  his  followers  supported 
their  mission  largely  on  a  basis  of  miraculous  tales,  a 
new  turn  was  given  to  the  situation  by  the  advent 
of  the  last  and  greatest  of  the  Hebrew  prophets.  This 
was  a  hellenized,  even  romanized  Jew  of  Tarsus,  Saul 
by  name,  or  in  Roman  form  Paul. 

Paul  represented  a  class  intermediate  between  the 
Jews  of  Jerusalem  and  those  who  had  partly  merged 
into  other  nationalities.  He  came  of  a  strict  Jewish 
family  that  followed  the  Law,  always  looking  towards 
Jerusalem,  yet  that  lived  in  a  large  Greek  city,  a 
centre  of  trade  and  culture.  His  father,  indeed,  had 
acquired  Roman  citizenship  and  transmitted  it  to  his 
son. 

The  early  years  of  Paul  were  marked  by  the  con- 
flict between  these  two  elements  in  him.  Was  he  to 
be  a  Jew  of  the  Jews,  or  a  citizen  of  the  great  Medi- 
terranean empire  .^^  For  some  years  it  appeared  as 
though  the  former  ideal  would  prevail.  He  went  to 
Jerusalem  as  a  youth  to  study  the  Law  and  the  Pro- 
phets, and  soon  took  a  prominent  part  as  a  persecutor 
of  the  sect  of  which  Peter  was  the  head.  His  intel- 
lectual and  physical  vigour,  his  flaming  zeal  and  con- 
centrated energy  of  action  were  brought  into  play; 


PAUL  81 

and,  If  the  story  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  can  be 
relied  on,  he  soon  came  into  open  collision  with  the 
followers  of  Peter.  The  occasion  was  dramatic. 

It  has  already  been  stated  that  these  believers  in 
a  Jewish  redeemer  god  were  as  a  rule  poor  men,  and 
apparently  practised  and  inculcated  community  of 
goods.  An  obscure  difficulty  arose  in  Judsea  with  re- 
gard to  a  legal  question  as  to  the  alimony  due  to  wid- 
ows, Greeks  and  Jews.  This  difficulty  Peter  took  it  on 
himself  to  solve,  in  a  manner  that  is  not  clearly  stated, 
and  through  the  agency  of  a  special  committee  on 
which  was  one  named  Stephen.  It  is  clearly  to  be 
surmised,  however,  that  these  agents  would  solve 
the  problem  in  the  direction  of  the  theory  of  a  com- 
munity of  goods,  and  in  that  of  their  own  peculiar 
religious  tenets.  As  a  result  a  storm  broke  over  their 
heads,  and  in  that  storm  Stephen  perished,  earning 
the  first  place  in  the  long  catalogue  of  the  martyrs. 
Paul  displayed  great  activity  among  those  who  led 
the  Pharisee  movement  that  resulted  in  the  stoning 
of  Stephen  to  death.  But  it  may  be  noted  that  when 
at  about  the  same  time  the  Sanhedrin  summoned 
Peter  before  it,  Paul's  master,  Gamaliel,  apparently 
showed  some  misgiving,  and  persuaded  the  council 
to  let  Peter  go. 

It  often  enough  happens  with  men  of  strong  mind 
and  active  disposition  that  the  very  doubts  they  feel 
at  bottom,  push  them  on  to  greater  and  greater  activ- 
ity in  a  false  direction.  Such  may  well  have  been  the 
case  with  Paul,  doubt  latent  in  him,  yet  in  action  be- 
coming more  and  more  zealous,  the  arch  persecutor 


82  THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

and  afflictor  of  the  struggling  sect.  He  continued  on 
this  path  until  the  year  34,  and  then  suddenly  reacted 
and  found  his  mission. 

On  the  road  to  Damascus  Paul  was  suddenly  struck 
to  .earth  in  a  blaze  of  light;  he  temporarily  lost  his 
sight,  and  was  some  days  recovering.  While  in  this 
abnormal  state  he  saw  a  vision  of  the  Jewish  Re- 
deemer; and  he  was  attended  in  the  city  by  an  ad- 
herent of  the  new  sect.  On  his  recovery  he  was  a 
changed  man.  A  flash  of  realization  had  burst  in  on 
him:  that  the  struggle  was  hopeless  with  the  scourge 
and  the  prison  to  dominate  a  spiritual  resisjtance;  that 
if  in  obvious  fact  Jesus  was  dead,  yet  in  spirit  he 
might  have  risen  again  provided  only  faith  would 
adopt  this  consoling,  potent,  mystic  and  marvel- 
working  hypothesis.  Here  was  both  an  undeniable 
fact  and  a  sublime  mystery,  an  all-pervading  force, 
the  road  to  truth,  to  salvation,  to  the  regeneration  of 
mankind.  It  was  this,  or  something  very  like  it  that 
happened  to  Paul  on  the  desert  road  near  the  gates  of 
Damascus. 

The  new  convert  at  once  set  to  work,  much  to  the 
astonishment,  almost  dismay,  of  those  he  had  so 
vigorously  persecuted.  And  he  proceeded  to  preach 
Jesus  after  a  fashion  which  was  not  exactly  that  of 
Peter  and  his  associates.  Yet  as  there  was  little 
enough  in  the  way  of  formulated  beliefs,  little  enough 
in  the  way  of  organized  ritual,  and  as  the  preach- 
ing of  Jesus  both  by  Peter  and  by  Paul  was  largely 
bound  up  with  the  textual  exposition  and  inter- 
pretation of  the  elastic  Old  Testament  allegories  so 


PAUL  83 

dear  to  the  Jews,  the  divergence  between  the  Petrine 
and  the  PauKne  preaching  was  not  of  necessity  ir- 
reconcilable. The  peasant  of  Judaea,  the  high-born 
Jew  of  Alexandria,  the  Greek  convert,  the  hellenized 
Pharisee  of  Tarsus,  could  not  be  expected  to  fit  the 
messianic  and  Old  Testament  prophecies  to  the  re- 
deemer god  cult  in  identical  terms. 

With  Paul  the  tendency  to  diverge  was  deep- 
seated,  and  that  because  of  his  individual  power,  forti- 
tude and  imagination,  coupled  with  a  political  out- 
look that  was  at  the  antipodes  from  that  of  the  Jews 
of  Palestine.  For  some  years,  however,  this  tendency 
was  not  fully  revealed;  but  in  a.d.  45,  while  proselyt- 
izing in  Antioch,  he  boldly  turned  from  the  Jews  to 
the  Gentiles,  and  declared  his  mission  to  be  not  the 
restoration  of  a  Jewish  kingdom,  but  the  christianiza- 
tion  of  the  Mediterranean  world.  It  is  when  this  great 
stage  of  Paul's  career  is  entered  that  his  teaching 
and  its  effects  must  be  noted  in  detail. 

Historians  and  theologians  of  all  varieties  of  opin- 
ion agree  as  to  the  supreme  importance  of  Paul  as  the 
infuser  of  Christianity  into  the  Roman  world;  and 
following  this  up  they  invariably  concentrate  their 
attention  on  him  and  his  work.  But  although  Paul 
was  undoubtedly  the  greatest  single  factor  in  the  mo- 
mentous change  that  was  impending,  he  stood  for  only 
one  type  of  the  Jewish  mind,  and  the  process  that 
took  place  was  really  the  impregnation  of  the  Ro- 
man world  by  the  Jewish  mind,  —  and  of  that  mind 
there  were  other  representatives.  To  see  it  on  all  sides 
we  must  take  the  three  great  Jewish  contemporaries  : 


84  THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

Jesus,  Paul  and  Philo  of  Alexandria.  For  no  correct 
view  of  Paul  can  be  obtained  save  in  the  light  of  the 
larger  generalization  that  embraces  both  Jesus  and 
Philo. 

Philo  was  a  Jew  of  high  lineage  born  at  Alexandria 
about  ten  years  before  the  Christian  era.  His  educa- 
tion combined  completely  the  whole  course  of  the 
Jewish  and  of  the  Greek  instruction.  He  not  only 
knew  the  Law  and  the  Prophets,  but  he  was  steeped 
in  Homer,  the  Attic  drama,  and  Greek  philosophy 
from  Pythagoras  to  Zeno,  and  from  Zeno  to  those  pro- 
fessors of  philosophy  under  whom  he  had  studied, 
and  that  he  was  to  surpass.  He  rose  in  due  course 
to  be  the  chief  Jewish  doctor  of  Alexandria,  the  presi- 
dent of  its  synagogue,  and  also  the  greatest  philoso- 
pher of  his  day  in  the  Alexandrian  schools.  He  did 
not,  apparently,  come  into  contact  with  the  obscure 
sect  of  the  Christians,  which  spread  far  more  rap- 
idly towards  Asia  Minor  than  it  did  towards  Egypt. 
And  so  he  may  be  said  to  stand  for  the  fusion  of  the 
Jewish  thought  with  the  Greek  in  the  Old  Testament 
sense,  just  as  Paul  stands  for  it  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment sense.  Philo,  Paul,  Jesus,  represented  Judaism 
in  a  triple  aspect,  and  it  was  Judaism  in  this  larger 
aspect  that  was  at  this  very  moment  making  a  violent 
impact,  marked  by  many  notable  incidents,  on  the 
Mediterranean  world. 

The  Roman  state  was  going  through  extraordinary 
changes  just  before  and  just  after  the  time  of  Christ. 
Fifty  years  before,  it  was  still  under  the  sway  of  the 
Republic,  dominated  by  the  great  personality  of  Cse- 


PAUL  85 

sar;  fifty  years  after,  it  had  already  passed  through 
and  left  behind  the  reign  of  the  Emperor  Caligula, 
one  of  the  most  poignantly  infamous  pages  that  de- 
spotism has  ever  seared  into  human  memory.  Csesar, 
to  strengthen  his  usurped  authorit^^  had  secured 
the  title  of  Pontifex  Maximus,  or  high  priest.  Ti- 
berius and  his  successors  had  rapidly  advanced  from 
that  point  to  divinity  itself.  In  this  they  were  only 
following  an  example  set  by  the  Greek  monarchies. 
For  when  Alexander  conquered  the  East,  there  was 
little  in  religion  of  the  later  ideas  of  the  universal 
god  and  the  future  life;  its  rites  were  socio-political 
in  their  significance,  its  cults  centred  on  gods  who 
were  often  enough  conceived  of  as  nothing  more  than 
supermen.  What  more  natural  then  than  that  Alex- 
ander should  erect  his  own  cult  as  the  supreme  and 
unifying  religious  rite  of  his  empire  ?  The  idea  was 
followed  by  the  Greek  monarchs  who  succeeded  him. 
The  Roman  Republic  continued  the  tradition  by 
setting  up  statues  of  Roma  for  worship.  And  with 
the  insane  Cahgula,  who  reigned  from  37  to  41  a.d. 
we  reach  the  enforced  adoration  of  the  Emperor  as 
the  supreme  God.  A  statue  of  Caligula  as  God  was 
even  sent  to  Jerusalem  to  be  erected  in  the  Temple  to 
compel  the  homage  and  worship  of  the  recalcitrant 
Jews.^ 

1  There  was  also  a  legal  and  constitutional  idea  behind  the 
cult,  though  it  does  not  directly  bear  on  the  questions  here 
discussed.  There  is  an  admirable  passage  on  the  breakdown 
of  the  Greek  city  god  system  at  the  time  of  Alexander  in  Fer- 
guson, Hellenistic  Athens,  22G. 


86  THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

On  the  surface,  except  among  the  Jews,  there  was 
little  but  acquiescence.  The  servile  conditions  on 
which  Rome  now  rested  her  power  reacted  against  her. 
Servility  and  fawning  crept  up  from  the  slave  to  the 
aristocrat,  and  surrounded  the  Emperors.  Their  cult 
merely  transposed  into  ceremonial  form  the  adoration 
of  their  Courts,  and  tended  to  superimpose  a  cen- 
tralized worship  on  the  numerous  and  hollow  forms 
of  the  Roman  religion.  But  below  the  surface  there 
was  a  revolt  of  outraged  opinion  and  virtue.  This  re- 
volt was  confined  to  a  small  class,  but  one  that  de- 
serves the  closest  attention. 

As  early  as  three  hundred  years  before  Christ, 
Zeno  was  giving  to  Greek  philosophy  that  particular 
turn  that  was  to  convert  it  into  the  great  moral  con- 
stituent of  Rome  at  the  epoch  of  the  early  Emperors. 
He  founded  the  school  of  thought  known  as  Stoicism, 
that  ranged  all  the  way  from  Babylon  to  Rome,  and 
that  received  its  greatest  development  in  Italy.  The 
Stoic  belief,  —  sometimes  described  as  a  materialis- 
tic pantheism,  —  was  in  a  supreme,  omnipotent  and 
moral  God,  at  which  point  it  coincided  with  the  higher 
Brahmanistic  ideas.  It  laid  the  greatest  stress  on 
conduct  and  conscience,  rejecting  happiness  as  a 
norm,  and  accepting  unhappiness  and  suffering.  It 
carried  humanitarianism  to  a  point  where  its  doctrine 
was  almost  a  menace  to  the  Roman  state,  for  it  recog- 
nised the  brotherhood  and  essential  equality  of  all 
men.  During  the  first  century  its  greatest  Italian 
representative  was  Seneca,  a  contemporary  of  Jesus, 
who  practised  in  Rome  the  counterpart  of  the  Gali- 


PAUL  87 

lean's  gospel  of  the  poor,  for  he,  a  senator  and  consul, 
invited  his  slaves  to  his  own  table. 

But  the  weakness  of  Stoicism  was  the  weakness 
of  all  philosophical  schools;  it  was  not  a  religion. 
True,  the  religions  of  Greece  and  Rome  were  merely 
ceremonial  and  non-ethical,  and  in  its  ethics  Stoicism 
contained  the  most  precious  of  religious  elements. 
Yet,  as  the  mass  of  mankind  is  constituted,  it  rejects 
as  non-religious  that  which  is  not  susceptible  of  or- 
ganization and  of  ceremonial,  or  in  other  words  of 
the  opportunity  for  collective  and  emotional  action. 
Stoicism  might  touch  with  splendour  the  highest 
levels,  it  could  never  illuminate  the  dark  valleys  in 
which  the  mass  of  Roman  humanity  blindly  struggled. 
Here  and  there  a  few  gifted  and  noble  men  tried,  in 
the  midst  of  surrounding  turpitude,  to  live  up  to  the 
precepts  of  Zeno,  but  their  influence  was  slight;  their 
importance  was  greatest  as  a  symptom  of  latent  moral 
reaction. 

As  a  symptom  these  Stoics  stood  for  a  considerable 
body  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  Roman  world  who, 
most  of  them  not  learned  enough  to  profess  a  philo- 
sophical doctrine,  can  only  be  dimly  discerned  through 
the  historical  fog.  They  were  that  finest  flower  of 
civilization,  the  men  who  could  rise  above  the  ties  of 
family,  or  city,  or  imperial  dominion,  who  could  re- 
sist the  pursuit  of  fortune  and  the  conservative  or  sen- 
suous appeal  of  religion,  to  give  their  allegiance  to  con- 
science alone.  There  were  many  such  in  the  Empire, 
often  enough  the  retired  merchants  or  soldiers,  who 
had  seen  all  countries,  dealt  with  all  men  and  finally 


88  THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

learnt  to  estimate  mankind  and  themselves  at  the 
test  of  real  values.  But  where  could  they  turn  for 
salvation?  Towards  Rome,  —  or  towards  Jerusalem? 
At  Rome,  in  the  year  41,  was  Caligula,  by  public 
repute  a  monster,  and  lately,  by  the  force  of  the  Ro- 
man law,  proclaimed  God ;  there,  clearly,  was  no  help. 
The  Emperor  failing,  what  could  the  Empire  do?  It 
could  offer  the  Stoic  philosophy,  the  refined  and 
academic  pursuit  of  aristocratic  dilettantes.  It 
could  offer  the  rigid  and  empty  formalism  of  the  Ro- 
man cults,  or  the  sensuous  rites  of  the  Greek  and 
Asiatic  gods,  or  the  pursuit  of  beauty  in  art,  or  of 
sheer  pleasure  in  Epicureanism.  Again,  nothing  to 
satisfy  revolted  conscience.  But  there  was  one  thing 
more,  and  for  that  thing  Philo,  Paul,  Jesus,  all 
equally  stood.  In  every  city,  especially  in  Greece 
and  Asia,  stood  the  unpretentious  little  temple  or 
synagogue  of  the  Jews.  There  a  congregation  as- 
sembled several  times  a  week,  austere  in  demeanour 
and  practice,  to  worship  an  invisible  and  omnipo- 
tent deity.  The  severity  of  the  cult,  its  ethical  force, 
the  rigid  devotion  of  its  followers,  could  not  but 
draw  the  attention  and  strike  the  imagination  of 
those  who  were  seeking  for  the  moral  support  of  a 
moral  religion.  And  a  few  scraps  of  evidence,  to- 
gether with  the  general  trend  of  Paul's  epistles  and 
the  Acts,  must  serve  to  formulate  this  general  con- 
clusion, that  in  many  parts  of  the  Empire  men 
were  looking  towards  the  Jewish  synagogues,  and  in 
not  a  few  cases  were  actually  becoming  converts  to 
Judaism. 


PAUL  89 

But  there  were  grave  difficulties  in  the  way.  In 
the  larger  cities  the  Jews  were  viewed  with  aversion 
by  the  common  people,  in  very  much  the  same  man- 
ner as  prevails  in  Germany  and  Russia  at  the  present 
day.  In  Alexandria  at  the  period  of  the  edicts  order- 
ing the  cult  of  the  Emperor  very  serious  riots  broke 
out  against  them,  and  Philo  himself  proceeded  to 
Rome  in  the  year  41  to  attempt  to  placate  Caligula; 
the  task  was  not  easy,  and  Philo  was  lucky  to  escape 
from  the  presence  of  the  Emperor  alive. 

These  riots  had  proceeded  in  great  part  from  jeal- 
ousy of  the  commercial  ascendency  and  thrift  of  the 
Jews.  To  this  may  be  added  the  rooted  popular  aver- 
sion for  the  Jewish  rite  of  circumcision,  which  was 
connected  with  the  stigma  of  mutilation  as  a  badge 
of  slavery,  and  which  in  other  ways  caused  a  blind 
aversion  easily  turning  to  hatred.  The  pretext  for  the 
riots  was  the  welcome  given  by  the  Jews  of  Alexan- 
dria to  Herod  Agrippa,  who  was  to  become  their  king 
a  few  months  later,  and  their  steady  refusal  to  render 
divine  honours  to  the  Emperor.  And  in  this  last  mat- 
ter may  be  noted  one  of  the  deepest  of  the  conflict- 
ing currents  of  the  age.  For  just  as  the  Empire  was 
attempting  to  strengthen  its  weak  constitution  by 
deifying  its  political  head,  so  the  little  communities 
converted  by  Paul  and  other  missionaries,  and  fol- 
lowing them  humanity,  were  rapidly  deifying  the 
crucified  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  the  redeemer  god  and 
saviour  of  mankind. 

As  to  Philo  little  more  need  be  said  at  present. 
Though  not,  strictly  speaking,  one  of  the  Stoics,  his 


90  THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

sympathies  were  with  them.  His  greatest  effort  was 
to  reconcile  the  Law  and  the  Prophets  with  Greek 
philosophy  by  a  free  use  of  allegorical  interpretation; 
and  this  effort  was  destined  to  make  a  profound  im- 
press on  Christian  doctrine  as  it  developed  during  his 
century  and  the  next.  The  utterance  of  Paul  might 
well  have  been  applied  to  Philo,  and  it  is  not  impos- 
sible he  had  Philo  in  mind,  when  he  said:  "The  Jews 
require  a  sign,  and  the  Greeks  seek  after  wisdom." 
To  unite  the  symbol,  the  allegory,  with  the  philoso- 
phic truth,  that  was  the  effort  of  Philo,  and  in  a  sense 
his  effort  was  not  in  vain.  For  the  moment,  however, 
these  doctrinal  and  philosophical  questions  may  be 
left  on  one  side,  to  view  Paul's  work  on  the  Roman 
world. 

We  have  seen  that  it  was  in  the  year  46  that  Paul 
frankly  turned  from  the  Jews  to  the  Gentiles.  The 
Jews  were  diflScult  to  manage;  the  Gentiles  were  eager 
to  listen;  and  Paul  was  great  enough  to  rise  from  a 
Jewish  point  of  view  to  one  that  was  Roman,  or  let 
us  even  say  Stoic,  that  is  as  wide  as  human  kind.  The 
extraordinary  fortitude  and  zeal  that  took  him  tri- 
umphantly through  prison,  and  flogging,  and  pain, 
was  allied  with  a  cool  and  tempered  outlook  and 
with  a  natural  genius  for  organization.  Leaving  the 
Jews  behind  him,  he  set  his  face  towards  Rome, 
and  first  of  all  preached  unity  under  the  redeemer 
Jesus.  That  was  the  doctrine  of  an  organizer,  and  of 
a  Roman  citizen. 

Paul's  missionary  work  lay  along  the  great  central 
line  of  the  Empire's  activity,  from  Syrian  Antioch, 


PAUL  91 

through  Tarsus,  Ephesus,  and  Corinth,  to  Rome.  In 
these  and  many  other  cities  he  preached  his  doctrine, 
and,  as  already  stated,  it  was  not  at  all  points  in  accord 
with  that  of  Jesus.  The  insistence  on  the  contrast  be- 
tw^een  riches  and  poverty  almost  disappears,  for  in  the 
Asiatic  cities  the  Christian  doctrine  of  Paul  appealed 
to  the  educated  classes,  while  in  Judaea  that  of  Jesus 
had  been  placed  before  the  poor.  The  Jewish  ele- 
ment again  gradually  makes  way  for  the  imperial, 
and  Paul  abandons  circumcision, — let  the  Jews  cir- 
cumcise and  the  Gentiles  abstain,  is  his  position. 
And  in  another  particular  the  same  cosmopolitan- 
ism appears,  for  he  declares  that  salvation  does  not 
come  through  the  Law,  but  through  faith.  His  doc- 
trine oscillates  between  points  that  are  widely  sepa- 
rated. On  the  one  hand  the  resurrection,  as  he 
preaches  it,  is  in  an  immediate  bodily  sense,  at  the 
second  coming  of  the  Christ;  he  distinguishes  however 
the  spiritual  from  the  corporeal  body  in  the  mystical 
and  angelic  manner  that  the  Jews  had  adapted  from 
the  Persian  ideas,  and  that  also  finds  expression  in 
Philo.  At  the  coming  of  Christ,  Paul  declares,  "then 
Cometh  the  end  .  ,  .  when  he  shall  have  put  down 
all  rule,  and  all  authority  and  power." 

The  last  quoted  utterance  was,  of  course,  extremely 
seditious;  and  Paul  was  usually  more  guarded.  But 
at  heart  he,  like  the  Jews  all  over  the  Roman  Empire, 
rebelled  against  the  divine  claim  of  the  Emperors. 
And  if  one  must,  with  insuflScient  data,  attempt  to 
interpret  his  position,  it  must  be  stated  thus,  —  that 
he  accepted  as  inevitable  and  even  desirable,  the  unity 


92  THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

of  the  nations  in  a  Mediterranean  empire  under  a  cen- 
tral government,  and  that  he  hoped  that  by  preach- 
ing Jesus  he  could  eventually  turn  that  Empire  from 
its  evil  religious  course.  It  was  perhaps  in  this  mode 
of  thought  that  he  sometimes  uses  the  words  free  and 
freeman;  he  views  himself  as  free  from  all  religious 
and  governmental  obligations  because  he  follows  the 
Christ,  who  means  eventually,  at  the  second  coming, 
to  overturn  all  religions  and  government.  His  doc- 
trine here,  if  the  interpretation  be  a  correct  one,  is 
very  close  to  the  purely  philosophic  one  of  Philo  who 
argues  that  the  pursuit  of  virtue  is  the  means  of 
acquiring  spiritual  freedom. 

Paul's  mission  was  highly  successful.  Everywhere 
he  left  congregations  of  zealous,  highminded  converts. 
He  gave  them  rules  of  conduct,  for  with  Paul,  unlike 
Peter,  the  stress  was  always  on  ethical  values  and  never 
on  the  miraculous ;  he  was  the  practical  organizer  of  re- 
volted conscience  to  which  he  tendered  a  mystic  but 
adequate  formula.  He  advised  his  followers  to  refer 
their  differences  to  their  own  tribunals,  thus  avoiding 
all  connection  with  the  local  administrations.  To  keep 
the  flock  together  in  unity  of  behef  and  action  he 
wrote  letters  to  the  Churches,  and  these  are  the  ear- 
liest Christian  writings,  to  this  day  the  chief  record 
of  the  early  steps  of  the  new  religion.  He  carried  his 
work  as  far  as  Rome,  where  he  died  possibly  in  the 
year  67  under  the  Emperor  Nero.  The  vague  tradi- 
tions of  the  Church  assert  that  he  was  put  to  death, 
and  give  him  rank  as  a  Martyr. 

It  was  at  this  moment  that  the  Jews  of  Palestine  fin- 


PAUL  93 

ally  turned  against  the  Roman  government  in  an  ac- 
cess of  patriotic  and  religious  frenzy.  The  ensuing 
struggle  lasted  four  years,  and  had  some  influence 
on  the  development  of  the  new  religion.  The  Christian 
Jews,  or  Ebionites  as  they  were  called,  from  ebion 
"poor,"  had  continued  the  early  tradition    of  the 
Christ  cult  more  closely  than  Paul  and  the  romaniz- 
ing  Jews.  But  their  leaders  showed  little  power  or  abil- 
ity.   Peter  alone  among  them  made  some  advance; 
Paul  seems  to  have  influenced  him  deeply,  and  to 
have  half  persuaded  him  to  adopt  his  own  cosmopoli- 
tan position.  Peter  went  through  many  hesitations, 
and  it  is  possible  that  the  Church  tradition  is  true 
that  makes  him  visit  Rome,  and  end  his  days  there. 
At  all  events  that  tradition  gave  Rome  a  direct  con- 
nection  with   the  two  foremost   Christian  preach- 
ers, a  connection  she  firmly  claims  even  to  this  day. 

Apart  from  Peter,  the  Ebionites  continued  a  de- 
spised Jewish  sect.  They  initiated  a  controversy  not 
by  any  means  closed  as  to  whether  Jesus  was  the 
S0ti  0f  J^^eph  6r  the  s^^n  of  G^d.  They  sent  diit  mis- 
si(Miaries  and  made  converts  in  Babylonia,  Arabia 
and  Egypt,  even  in  Syria.  They  were  wellnigh  de- 
stroyed when  Titus  sacked  Jerusalem.  They  carried 
Christianity  eastward  after  that  event,  and  became 
the  starting-point  of  several  other  obscure  sects. 


CHAPTER  VI 

FROM  A.D.   70   TO  A.D.   312 

It  was  during  the  close  of  Paul's  life,  just  as  the 
Jews  of  Judsea  were  being  driven  to  the  point  of  re- 
bellion by  the  pressure  of  Rome,  that  the  writings 
of  the  New  Testament  came  into  existence.  Precise 
dates  are  highly  controversial,  and  some  variations 
amount  to  half  a  century  or  more,  but  an  historical 
view  sufficient  for  the  present  purpose  can  probably 
be  attained  without  raising  any  question  of  detail. 

In  one  sense  the  Christian  writings  appear  to  have 
begun  very  soon  after  the  death  of  Jesus.  Men  be- 
gan to  jot  down,  in  Aramaic  or  Greek,  sayings  that 
were  attributed  to  him.  Such  sayings  were  trans- 
mitted from  Palestine  to  Egypt  and  Asia  Minor,  or 
were  evolved  locally,  and  in  the  new  surroundings 
were  again  repeated  and  reproduced.  But  so  far  as 
one  can  judge,  on  extremely  scanty  evidence,  this 
process  in  its  first  stage  went  little  further  than  the 
accumulation  of  sayings;  there  was  not,  for  some  lit- 
tle time,  a  biography. 

Apparently  Paul  applied  the  stimulus  that  changed 
this  state  of  things.  From  thirty  to  forty  years  after 
the  death  of  Jesus,  Paul's  work  was  reaching  its  cul- 
mination. He  was  succeeding  in  the  establishment 
of  a  network  of  little  communities  through  the  heart 
of  the  Roman  world,  from  Antioch  to  Rome,  and  all 


FROM  A.D.  70  TO  A.D.   312  95 

his  efforts  were  bent  on  holding  them  together.  Hence 
his  epistles,  —  singularly  eloquent,  fervent,  let  us  say 
inspired  letters,  —  pleading  with  his  followers  for 
union,  morality,  and  faith  in  the  Christ.  In  these  let- 
ters, with  so  direct  an  aim  in  view,  Paul  confined  him- 
self pretty  well  to  his  immediate  object,  and  referred 
but  infrequently  to  the  history  of  the  Christian  sect, 
and  to  that  of  its  founder. 

But  the  need  for  some  authoritative  record  became 
more  and  more  felt  as  time  slipped  by,  and  as  the  sect 
became  greater  in  numbers  and  more  widespread; 
and  this  need  was  met.  Accounts  of  the  life  of  Jesus 
were  written,  of  which  some  have  not  survived,  and 
others  that  did  survive  were  eventually  excluded 
from  the  accepted  canon  of  the  New  Testament; 
the  period  during  which  these  early  lives  of  Jesus 
were  composed  may  be  roughly  dated  from  the  mid- 
dle of  the  first  to  the  beginning  of  the  third  century. 

The  earliest  of  these  texts  that  we  have  are  the  gos- 
pels named  after  Matthew,  Mark,  and  Luke;  they  are 
three  versions  largely  founded  on  the  same  material, 
and  possibly  derived  in  part  from  an  earlier  source, 
a  collection  of  the  sayings  of  Jesus  with  a  few  tradi- 
tions as  to  his  life  added  to  them.  These  synoptic 
gospels,  as  they  are  called,  are  now  by  most  scholars 
referred  back  to  the  authorship  of  Luke.  Without 
attempting  to  discuss  a  point  that  is  incapable  of 
definite  proof,  the  generally  accepted  fact  will  be  used 
here,  though  it  is  not  decisive  in  itself  of  any  of  the 
more  important  issues. 

Luke  then,  appears  to  have  been  a  Greek  physi- 


96  THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

cian,  and  a  convert  and  companion  of  Paul.  He  ex- 
pressly declares  that  he  was  not  a  direct  witness  of 
any  of  the  scenes  he  relates,  and  that  he  has  no  spe- 
cial authority  to  relate  them.  He  undoubtedly  was 
a  compiler,  and  that  partly  from  written  sources, 
partly  from  oral  tradition;  his  work  was  probably 
done  at  Rome,  and  perhaps  not  until  after  the  cap- 
ture of  Jerusalem  by  Titus  in  the  year  70. 

Let  us  now  consider  the  general  character  of  the 
synoptic  gospels,  and  compare  it  with  what  has  just 
been  said  as  to  the  conditions  of  their  authorship. 
There  are  two  ways  of  approaching  them,  each  one 
extreme  and  not  truly  historical;  between  these  lies 
a  mean  that  may  possibly  lead  to  some  degree  of  his- 
torical satisfaction.  First  of  these  ways  is  the  eccles- 
iastical, which  lays  down  the  fundamental  position 
that  the  writings  of  Luke  and  his  fellow  workers  were 
divinely  inspired.  Why  Luke,  who  formally  disclaims 
authority,  who  stumbles  and  contradicts,  who  em- 
bellishes and  falsifies,  should  be  declared  to  be  in- 
spired, is  not  worth  considering.  Such  a  position  is 
either  to  be  accepted  or  rejected,  it  is  not  suscept- 
ible of  serious  discussion.  The  plain  fact  is  that  no- 
thing could  be  more  human,  more  appealingly  hu- 
man, than  the  gospels,  with  all  their  contradictions, 
naiveties,  realism,  aspirations,  lapses  of  intelligence 
and  inadequacy.  The  other  approach  is  in  that  ex- 
treme form  of  scholarship  which,  in  its  anxiety  to  criti- 
cize, over-reaches  itself;  it  leads,  with  certain  German 
and  Dutch  writers,  to  wholesale  rejection  almost  as  un- 
convincing as  the  wholesale  acceptance  of  the  old- 


FROM  A.D.   70  TO  A.D.    312  97 

fashioned  churchman.  But  the  first  and  most  difficult 
task  of  criticism  is  that  of  estimating  the  whole,  and 
it  is  only  when  the  outline  is  fairly  seen  that  it  be- 
comes profitable  to  rectify  details.  And  so  the  first 
task  with  the  gospels  is  to  try  to  seize  their  larger 
proportions. 

In  this  broad  sense  the  genuineness  of  the  synoptic 
gospels  as  to  the  general  character  of  the  sayings  of 
Jesus,  apart  from  his  hfe,  has  already  been  discussed. 
These  sayings  make  a  large  proportion  of  the  whole; 
they  are  of  a  markedly  individual  character,  and  in  the 
main  thoroughly  consistent.  That  gives  them,  in  the 
absence  of  some  proof  to  the  contrary,  an  authorita- 
tive character.!  It  also  accords  with  the  curious  fact 
that  during  the  first  two  centuries  the  fathers  of  the 
Church  always  laid  stress  on  this  aspect  of  the  gospels, 

passing  more  lightly  over  the  statements  as  to  the  life 
of  Jesus. 

Even  at  this  point  it  may  be  remarked,  however, 
that  the  sayings  of  Jesus  reported  by  the  gospel 
writers  show  in  places  their  reporters'  lack  of  inter- 
pretative ability,  and  also  that  the  material  was 
brought  together  from  various  sources.  For  these  say- 
ings had  rapidly  taken  on  colour  from  the  circle  to 
which  they  had  penetrated,  as  for  example,  in  that 
discovered  in  Egypt  in  which  a  variety  of  pantheistic 
mysticism  is  found,  that  could  hardly  have  been  picked 
up  on  the  banks  of  Jordan:  "Raise  the  stone  and 
there  thou  shalt  find  me,  cleave  the  wood  and  there 

1  The  reader  will  doubtless  observe  that  this  range  of  facts 
would  fit  an  earlier  Jesus  equally  well. 


98  THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

am  I."  But  without  pursuing  this  matter  further, 
let  us  turn  to  the  points  where  criticism  becomes 
essential. 

The  case  against  the  gospel  writers  is  clear.  They 
contradicted  one  another;  they  distorted  facts;  they 
inserted  accounts  of  miracles;  and  they  inserted  pure 
myths.  But  though  the  case  is  clear,  it  cannot  be 
judged  by  the  standards  of  to-day,  and  before  com- 
ing to  any  adverse  conclusion,  the  standards  and  con- 
ditions of  their  own  day  must  be  considered. 

Few  people  realize  what  a  recent  development  is 
accuracy  in  historical  and  literary  method.  Not  more 
than  half  a  century  ago  the  editors  of  texts  con- 
sidered it  their  literary  duty  or  privilege  to  improve 
their  author  by  suppression  and  even  by  change.  If 
this  sort  of  thing  was  constantly  done  by  upright  and 
conscientious  men  in  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  is  there  any  difficulty  in  imagining  that 
equally  upright  and  conscientious  men  living  in  far 
less  critical  and  learned  surroundings,  using  languages 
and  modes  of  thought  in  which  hyperbole,  embellish- 
ment and  mysticism  were  ingrained,  transgressed  in  a 
somewhat  similar  way?  For  that  is  precisely  what 
will  have  to  be  postulated. 

The  age  was  not  learned;  the  Christian  writers, 
with  the  exception  of  Paul,  did  not  belong  to  the  high 
intellectual  class;  allegory  was  the  fashion,  was  indeed 
the  meeting-place  of  Hebrew  and  Greek ;  Oriental  im- 
agination drew  no  clear  line  between  fact  and  fiction, 
—  Oriental  wisdom  had  possibly  perceived  that  such 
a  line  never  could  be  drawn.  The  pagan  cults  had  from 


FROM  A.D.  70  TO  A.D.   312  99 

time  immemorial  reposed  on  a  basis  of  universally  ac- 
cepted miraculous  fraud;  and  Luke,  sitting  at  his  desk 
in  Rome,  may  fairly  be  assumed  to  have  been  even 
more  eager  to  accept  the  tale  of  a  miracle  from  a  fer- 
vent Christian,  than  a  fervent  Christian  of  to-day  is 
to  accept  the  same  tale  from  Luke.  It  was  even  more 
true  then  than  it  is  now  that  men  believe  what  they 
want  to  believe;  and  there  lies  the  simple  explanation 
that  covers  not  merely  the  synoptic  gospels,  but  a 
great  mass  of  literature  of  all  ages,  all  climes,  and 
all  creeds. 

We  may  say,  then,  that  in  all  good  faith,  the  gospel 
writers  dealt  with  the  facts  relating  to  the  life  of  Jesus 
precisely  as  men  of  their  time  might  have  been  ex- 
pected to.  Where  Mark  states  that  a  young  man 
stood  in  the  tomb  of  Gethsemane  and  told  the  woman 
who  sought  for  Jesus  that  he  was  gone  into  Galilee, 
and  Luke  states  that  it  was  two  young  men,  Matthew 
piously  evokes  an  earthquake  to  roll  the  stone  back, 
and  metamorphoses  the  young  man  into  an  angel  of 
the  Lord.  The  facts  about  the  life  of  Jesus  previous 
to  his  ministry  being  probably  shrouded  in  almost 
complete  obscurity,  the  same  religious  myths  that 
had  done  duty  for  Zoroaster  and  for  Buddha,  that 
were  inextricably  bound  up  with  the  cult  of  the  dei- 
ties of  Asia  and  Egypt  from  Cybele  to  Isis,  were  made 
to  serve  for  the  new  God;  and  in  the  virgin  conception 
of  Mary  the  miraculous  nature  of  her  son  was  happily 
made  to  blend  with  the  oldest  mythological  illusions 
of  the  people  of  the  Mediterranean. 

But  why  pursue  this  theme  into  its  innumerable 


100        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

details,  when  the  line  of  thought  is  clearly  enough 
indicated?  Are  we  to  believe,  for  instance,  that  the 
devil  carried  Jesus  from  the  wilderness  to  the  pin- 
nacles of  the  Temple  at  Jerusalem,  and  there  showed 
him  and  offered  him  the  kingdoms  of  the  earth?  Or 
are  we  to  sweep  this  out  of  existence  as  merely  untrue? 
Or  are  we  not  rather  to  see  in  it  a  traditional  legend  of 
Zoroaster,  current  among  the  Jews,  and  thus  filtering 
naturally,  almost  properly,  into  the  new  Christian  le- 
gend? Can  there  be  any  doubt  of  the  answer? 

The  Christians  of  let  us  say  the  year  70,  needed  not 
only  an  account  of  Jesus,  but  also  one  of  the  preach- 
ing of  his  doctrine  by  his  first  successors,  and  this  led 
to  the  composition  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles.  The 
synoptic  gospels  had  been  written  far  less  to  estab- 
lish precise  biographical  details  than  to  confirm  and 
strengthen  the  new  faith;  and  the  Acts  must  be 
viewed  in  a  somewhat  similar  way.  The  authorship 
is  a  matter  of  considerable  difficulty,  and  the  date 
may  possibly  be  a  good  deal  later  than  that  of  the 
gospels.  Be  that  as  it  may  there  are  two  broad  cur- 
rents to  be  easily  distinguished  running  through  the 
book,  as  well  as  a  minor  streak  of  harmonizing  deft- 
ness: the  first  is  Petrine,  the  second  is  Pauline.  Peter 
and  Jerusalem  are  mostly  to  be  found  in  the  early 
passages,  keyed  closely  to  the  tradition  of  Jesus,  with 
the  emphasis  constantly  thrown  on  the  miraculous 
powers  of  Peter,  on  Judaism,  and  on  the  struggle  of 
the  poor.  Paul  and  the  Empire  are  mostly  to  be 
found  in  the  later  passages,  with  far  less  emphasis 
thrown  on  the  miraculous,  on  the  poor,  on  Judaism; 


FROM  A.D.   70  TO  A.D.   312  101 

and  they  contain  the  new  message  to  the  intelHgent 
and  upright  citizens  of  the  Roman  world. 

We  may  now  summarize  this  earliest  group  of 
the  Christian  writings.  They  consisted  in:  numerous 
scattered  sayings  and  accounts  of  Jesus ;  the  epistles 
of  Paul;  a  few  other  epistles  of  less  interest  and  im- 
portance; the  Acts  of  the  Apostles;  the  three  synop- 
tic gospels.  These  writings  were  to  be  largely  added 
to  between  that  day  and  this,  but  the  canon  of  the 
New  Testament  was  already  practically  formed,  save 
for  the  Gospel  of  John,  which  will  receive  due  notice 
when  we  reach  the  epoch  of  its  composition.  Elim- 
inating the  very  palpable  rhetorical  embellishments 
which  the  zeal  of  the  writers  caused  them  to  add  to 
their  accounts  of  the  life  of  Jesus  and  of  Peter,  it  may 
be  said  of  these  writings  as  a  whole  that  they  are 
characterized  by  an  extraordinary  degree  of  simplic- 
ity, directness,  and  power.  They  stand  for  the  im- 
pact of  the  tremendously  vital  Jewish  intellect,  with 
its  narrow  yet  high  austerity,  and  its  fanatical  devo- 
tion, on  the  widespread  humanity  of  the  Mediterran- 
ean world.  We  shall  have  to  see,  now,  how  this  great 
simplicity  and  directness  were  soon  to  be  overlaid  by 
the  ritualism  of  Asia  Minor  and  the  philosophy  of 
Egypt. 

The  year  70  may  be  taken  as  a  convenient  date 
to  fix  the  moment  when  the  Christian  sect,  as  devel- 
oped by  Paul,  crystallized  its  essential  elements.  It 
was  the  year  of  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  of 
the  casting  out  of  orthodox  Hebraism.    The  rest. 


102        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

more  than  eighteen  hundred  years,  is  merely  struggle 
to  exist,  success,  possession,  and,  at  the  last,  decay. 
And  in  the  great  process  we  can  mark  off  the  next 
period  very  sharply  at  the  year  312,  when  Christ- 
ianity and  Rome,  after  a  long  and  obscure  contest, 
at  last  joined  hands.  How  are  the  phases  of  this  con- 
test to  be  traced?  We  will  first  follow  the  course  of 
the  Empire,  and  observe  its  rapidly  developing  weak- 
ness both  in  its  external  relations  and  in  its  internal 
affairs.  We  shall  then  note  its  continuous  hostility 
to  Christianity,  and  its  religious  effort  in  an  opposite 
direction.  After  which  we  will  turn  to  the  Church 
itself  and  follow  the  growth  of  a  central  creed  and 
organization  amid  contending  schemes  of  Christian 
faith. 

We  have  already  seen  with  what  rapidity  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  military  dictatorship  had  developed  the 
worst  features  of  autocracy.  The  power  seized  by 
Caesar  and  by  Augustus  had  at  first  been  of  advant- 
age to  the  Roman  world.  Even  Tiberius,  whatever 
his  faults,  had  given  the  provinces  a  strong  and  bene- 
ficent administration.  But  with  Caligula,  Claudius, 
Nero,  and  Domitian,  came  the  moral  collapse  of  the 
one-man  institution;  for  it  must  be  borne  in  mind 
that  the  moral  collapse  of  these  individuals  was 
merely  the  supreme  symptom  of  the  moral  collapse 
of  a  whole  civilization  beneath  them.  It  is  no  epi- 
gram to  say  that  the  Emperors  were  the  representa- 
tive men  of  their  day. 

With  the  Empire  in  this  situation  so  early  as  the 


FROM  A.D.   70  TO  A.D.   312^  103 

close  of  the  first  century,  the  two  hundred  years  that 
followed  were  a  constant  struggle  for  equilibrium, 
with  oscillations  one  way  or  the  other.  The  first  fa- 
vourable reaction  set  in  with  the  reign  of  the  Emperor 
Nerva  in  the  year  96  and  lasted  nearly  a  century. 
During  this  long  period  several  Emperors  of  great 
strength  of  character  occupied  the  throne,  Trajan, 
Hadrian,  Antoninus  Pius,  Marcus  Aurelius.  Military 
vigour  and  administrative  ability  were  the  rule,  and, 
on  the  whole,  the  Empire  seemed  to  prosper. 

The  death  of  Marcus  Aurelius  and  the  accession 
of  Commodus,  in  180,  closed  the  epoch,  for  with  the 
new  Emperor  the  world  was  once  more  in  bad  hands. 
His  pernicious  reign  was  one  of  disintegration,  and 
the  Empire,  in  its  first  or  pagan  form,  never  recov- 
ered from  its  effects.  After  Commodus  it  is  one  long 
period  of  internal  anarchy  until  Constantino  attains 
power  in  312,  —  a  period  of  anarchy  with  short  in- 
tervals of  respite,  such  reigns  as  those  of  Septimius 
Severus,  Severus  Alexander,  Aurelian  and  Diocle- 
tian. 

During  these  centuries  the  Roman  military  power 
gradually  declined,  while  at  the  same  time  it  became 
more  and  more  the  main  prop  of  the  Empire.  The 
technique  of  the  art  of  war  passed  from  Roman  to 
Greek  intellects;  the  Roman  and  Italian  contingents 
gradually  grew  smaller  while  those  from  the  outer 
bounds  of  the  Empire  became  larger;  the  Mediter- 
ranean man  slowly  became  less  and  less  able  to  sup- 
port the  weight  of  the  old  Roman  armour  and  to 
wield  the  sword  and  the  pilum  that  had  subdued  the 


104        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

world;  defensive  tactics,  a  huddling  of  masses  be- 
hind breastworks  of  bucklers,  replaced  the  extraor- 
dinarily mobile,  energetic,  and  offensive  formations 
of  the  legion  of  the  great  days.  The  old  armour  and 
arms  disappeared  in  the  second  century;  before  the 
close  of  the  third,  the  Emperor  Probus  had  flung  the 
ranks  of  the  legions  wide  open  to  German  mercen- 
aries. 

But  while  this  was  happening,  the  army  had  be- 
come, to  an  even  greater  extent  than  at  the  time  of 
Caesar,  the  ruling  factor  in  the  State.  Augustus  had 
created  the  Prsetorian  cohorts,  an  imperial  guard 
of  9000  men,  which  his  successors  increased.  These 
troops  dominated  the  city  of  Rome,  and  in  time  came 
to  dominate  the  Emperor  himself.  After  the  death  of 
Pertinax  in  193,  they  even  put  the  throne  up  to  auc- 
tion, a  simple  and  not  illogical  solution  for  the  in- 
terregnum that  had  occurred.  It  was  not  until  the 
reign  of  Constantine  that  their  commanding  influence 
ceased,  that  Emperor  disbanding  them,  and  leaving 
Rome  to  found  a  new  capital. 

It  was  not  only  in  this  direct  sense  that  the  mili- 
tary character  of  the  Empire  had  become  more  and 
more  emphasized,  but  in  another  equally  vital.  As 
Rome  in  her  early  days  had  turned  to  the  conquest 
of  Greece,  Italy  had  gained  internal  peace ;  as  the  zone 
of  conquest  had  been  pushed  into  Asia  Minor,  in  turn 
Greece  had  benefited ;  and  so  after  Greece,  Asia  Minor. 
The  pacific  periods  and  countries  of  the  early  period 
had  been  secured  by  pushing  back  the  circle  of  war- 
fare. But  along  the  borders  of  the  Empire  fighting  was 


FROM  A.D.  70  TO  A.D.   312  105 

as  continuous  as  it  had  been  in  the  old  days  among  the 
cities  of  Italy  or  Greece.  And  it  was  not  very  long 
before  the  huge  frontier  of  the  Emperors  was  found 
to  be  too  lengthy  and  too  remote  to  be  securely  held. 
By  the  time  of  Christ  the  attainable  had  been  reached, 
and  the  German  tribes  of  the  north  had  already  in- 
flicted a  signal  disaster  on  the  legions,  which  rolled 
them  back  from  the  Elbe  to  the  Rhine.  From  that 
moment,  the  very  beginning  of  the  Christian  era,  the 
tendency  for  the  northern  tribes  to  break  through  the 
frontier  was  felt.  In  vain  did  the  Romans  fortify  the 
Rhine  and  Danube,  and  build  a  wall  to  join  the  two 
great  rivers;  the  pressure  was  irresistible.    Scarcely 
a  half -century  passed  without  some  irruption,  gener- 
ally through  those  countries  now  known  as  Croatia 
and  Bosnia,  while  in  the  third  century  more  than  once 
large  armies  penetrated  into  Gaul  and  into  northern 
Italy  threatening  the  very  life  of  the  Empire.  Under 
those  circumstances  military  defence  was  the  essen- 
tial feature  of  government,  and  the  successful  soldier 
Aurelian  may  be  taken  as  the  best  type  of  Emperor 
produced  by  the  conditions  of  the  close  of  the  epoch 
that  we  are  now  considering. 

The  descending  course  on  which  Rome  was  run- 
ning was  felt  by  most  of  her  rulers  who  deserved 
power  and  even  by  some  who  only  exercised  it.  And 
it  may  be  hazarded,  for  the  sake  of  stating  the  case  in 
general  terms,  that  those  who  did  deserve  power  re- 
vealed the  fact  by  the  manner  in  which  they  attempted 
to  react.  In  many  cases,  with  Emperors  who  were 
soldiers  and  little  else,  the  reaction  was  merely  the 


106        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

vigorous  effort  to  obtain  military  and  administrative 
efficiency,  as  with  Titus,  or  Trajan,  or  Septimius 
Severus.  With  others  the  reaction,  or  the  effort  to 
affirm  the  authority  of  the  Emperor,  the  sanctity  of 
the  Empire,  took  an  ethical  or  religious  turn/  And 
among  these  Domitian  may  stand  for  the  blind  and 
vindictive  assertor  of  the  divinity  of  the  Emperors; 
Marcus  Aurelius  for  the  lofty  devotee  of  the  Stoic 
philosophy,  in  the  pursuit  of  the  precepts  of  which  he 
sees  the  hope  of  saving  humanity;  Aurelian  for  the 
soldier  reformer,  who  believes  that  a  new  religion 
may  save  the  Empire,  and  who  attempts  to  estab- 
lish one.  Let  us  view  these  cross-currents  a  little 
more  closely. 

The  persecution  of  the  Christians  was  a  constant 
factor  in  the  situation,  from  a  very  early  date.  For 
the  Christians  were,  in  a  sense,  a  continuation  of 
the  Jews,  and  the  Jews,  alone  of  all  the  nationalities 
that  made  up  the  Empire,  had  in  them  certain  char- 
acteristics that  were  incompatible  with  that  Empire. 
No  reasonable  man  can  doubt,  after  reading  Tacitus 
and  the  scanty  contemporary  allusions  to  the  Jews, 
that  they  held  a  special  and  well-marked  place,  and 
that  they  were  viewed  with  fear,  hatred  and  con- 
tempt. Even  Luke  clearly  disliked  the  Jews.  What 
were  the  reasons  for  this  feeling.^  They  have  already 
been  stated,  but  may  as  well  be  summarized  once 
more.  Those  reasons  were  their  exclusiveness,  the 
manner  in  which  they  kept  aloof  from  their  neigh- 
bours in  all  matters  religious,  ethical,  or  social;  their 
national  law,  more  sacred  for  them  than  the  imperial 


FROM  A.D.   70  TO  A.D.    312  107 

law,  and  becoming,  with  the  Christian  sect,  the  law 
of  the  Church;  their  abhorrent  practice  of  circum- 
cision; and  specially  with  the  Christians,  the  cult  of 
an  individual  as  God,  with  its  direct  challenge  of  the 
imperial  cult  of  the  Emperors;  the  centralizing  and 
unifying  tendency  of  the  sect,  again  challenging  Rome 
in  its  imperial  function. 

With  such  elements  of  antagonism  it  was  inev- 
itable that  a  collision  should  come.  And  as  the 
small  sect  of  the  Christians  was  at  the  beginning  so 
closely  identified  with  the  Jews,  it  was  natural  that 
at  first  there  should  be  a  good  deal  of  confusion  be- 
tween the  two.  The  earliest  persecutions  can  only 
be  seen  rightly  in  their  connection  with  the  effort  of 
the  Empire  to  make  the  Jewish  nation  render  divine 
honours  to  the  Emperor.  In  64  Nero  ordered  what  is 
known  as  the  first  persecution ;  it  was  directed  against 
both  Jews  and  Christians.  In  93  Domitian  followed 
his  predecessor's  example,  and  in  this  case  we  may 
note  one  or  two  special  points:  that  the  Emperor's 
wrath  was  directed  against  Jews,  Christians,  and  philo- 
sophers; that  apparently  a  few  members  of  his  imme- 
diate entourage  and  even  family  had  been  influenced 
by  the  new  doctrine;  and  that  with  this  Emperor 
there  was  the  greatest  stress  laid  on  his  own  divinity 
and  its  cult. 

More  incidents  followed,  —  one  of  wide  repute  con- 
cerning Trajan  and  Pliny, —  but  none  really  illustra- 
tive of  the  matter  until  the  year  135.  Then  occurred 
the  last  revolt  of  the  Jews  in  Judsea,  and  as  a  conse- 
quence the  Roman  government,  having  reasserted  its 


108        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

authority,  decided  to  raze  the  city  and  to  build  on  the 
site  a  colony,  ^lia  Capitolina.  In  this  way  it  was 
hoped  that,  deprived  of  a  national  focus,  the  Jews 
would  cease  troubling  the  Empire.  And,  in  fact,  they 
did,  though  their  great  religious  offspring,  now  nearly 
fledged,  was  destined  to  cause  the  Emperors  many 
more  misgivings  and  diflSculties. 

Marcus  Aurelius,  who  reigned  from  161  to  180, 
came  into  direct  conflict  with  the  Christians.  But 
the  reason  for  this  was  unlike  that  of  Domitian. 
Where  Domitian  had  the  arrogance  that  so  often 
accompanies  youth  and  crude  political  achievements, 
Marcus  Aurelius  had  attained  to  Stoic  humility. 
Where  Domitian  through  pride  and  through  fear 
sought  to  enforce  compliance,  Marcus  Aurelius  at- 
tempted to  secure  it  through  the  instinct  of  the  good 
administrator  and  the  zeal  of  the  philosopher.  He 
could  not  suffer  the  existence  of  a  sect  that  would  not 
conform;  he  despised  a  doctrine  which  to  his  elevated 
mind,  steeped  in  the  theories  of  Zeno,  appeared  a 
degraded  and  absurd  superstition.  So  he  persecuted 
Christianity,  and  that  twice,  but  in  vain. 

There  were  other  persecutions,  notably  that  of 
Decius  in  the  middle  of  the  third  century.  And  then, 
in  270,  came  the  brief  and  brilliant  reign  of  Aurelian. 
This  Emperor,  born  in  the  valley  of  the  Danube, 
and  son  of  the  priestess  of  an  Oriental  divinity,  had 
forced  his  way  to  the  front  like  so  many  of  his  prede- 
cessors by  his  military  talents.  In  four  years  of  power 
his  extraordinary  energy  cleared  the  Germans  out  of 
northern  Italy,  gave  Rome  the  protection  of  a  forti- 


FROM  A.D.  70  TO  A.D.  312  109 

fied  wall,  restored  a  great  part  of  her  ancient  frontier, 
and  won  for  him  the  title  of  Restitutor  Orhis.  But  Au- 
relian  was  more  than  a  soldier,  he  was  a  zealot.  Like 
the  Jew,  or  the  Christian,  he  had  an  exclusive  and 
cherished  belief;  and  he  attempted  to  reconstruct 
the  Empire  on  a  new  religious  basis.  To  understand 
the  work  of  Aurelian  it  will  be  best  to  view  the  gen- 
eral movement  of  the  pagan  cults  during  the  epoch 
we  are  now  considering,  and  this  will  be  better  left  to 
another  chapter. 


CHAPTER  VII 

FROM  A.D.   70   TO  A.D.    312   CONTINUED 

The  contact  of  Rome  with  the  East  during  five 
centuries,  B.C.  200  to  a.d.  300,  resulted  in  a  constant 
infiltration  of  Oriental  cults  into  western  Europe. 
The  movement  of  ideas,  especially  religious  ones, 
was  markedly  from  east  to  west,  not  from  west  to  east. 
For  behind  Greece  lay  Asia  Minor,  Egypt,  Baby- 
Ionia,  Persia,  India;  behind  Rome  lay  nothing  more 
than  the  newly  civilized  parts  of  Europe,  Spain  or 
Gaul,  with  nothing  to  give  save  for  a  time  economic 
and  military  assistance.  And  this  movement  of  ideas 
was,  for  geographical  and  economic  reasons,  chiefly 
along  the  route  that  Paul  had  frequented,  Syrian 
Antioch,  Ephesus,  Corinth,  the  route  that  naturally 
carried  the  Orient  to  the  city  of  Rome.  Let  us  now 
see  how  this  movement  had  affected  the  religion  of 
the  great  Mediterranean  capital. 

In  their  origin  the  Roman  and  Greek  cults  were 
closely  akin;  in  their  developments  totally  unlike. 
Without  tracing  the  early  stages  of  their  evolution 
it  may  be  said  that  the  Roman  gods  were  those  of 
agriculture  and  of  the  home,  multiplied  to  a  great 
number  and  served  with  a  highly  elaborated  ritual. 
The  Romans  did  not  allow  their  imagination  to  run 
riot  in  their  pantheon  as  the  Greeks  did,  but,  follow- 
ing their  national  bent,  set  to  work  to  organize  their 


FROM  A.D.  70  TO  A.D.  312  ill 

cults.  They  threw  the  emphasis  on  ceremonial  and 
developed  a  network  of  religious  custom  that  clothed 
every  event  of  life  with  its  due  accompaniment  of 
ritual.  Thus  a  vast  and  precise  religious  machinery 
was  built  up,  which,  though  wholly  external,  was  suf- 
ficient to  hold  many  generations  steadfast  in  their 
beliefs.  And  indeed  it  is  no  great  exaggeration  to 
say  that  that  machine  may  still  be  witnessed  in  full 
operation  in  the  Latin  countries. 

But  it  is  important  to  remember  that  the  Roman 
religion  in  its  pagan  form  was  not  exclusive.  If  Mars 
was  god  of  the  city  and  Vesta  goddess  of  the  house- 
hold, this  did  not  exclude  the  idea  that  some  new  god 
or  goddess  might  not  preempt  some  other  attribute. 
And,  in  fact,  as  the  Roman  conquests  extended,  so 
did  their  pantheon,  a  process  not  very  injurious  until 
the  bounds  of  Italy  and  Greece  were  overstepped 
and  Rome  actually  touched  the  East.  Then  came 
some  considerable  changes. 

A  shrine  was  erected  to  the  Greek  sun  god  Apollo 
as  early  as  432  B.C.  In  291  the  worship  of  Esculapius 
was  introduced.  After  200  the  Greek  mythology 
penetrated  completely,  and  it  should  not  be  forgotten 
that  the  Greeks  themselves  were  at  this  time  much 
under  the  influence  of  the  Orient.  Following  the 
Asiatic  custom  women  were  admitted  more  freely  to 
the  mysteries  of  religion  while  certain  Asiatic  cults 
began  to  play  a  prominent  part,  none  of  them  more 
than  that  of  Cybele. 

Cybele  was  the  great  mother  of  the  gods,  the  chief 
divinity  of  Phrygia  and  many  parts  of  Asia  Minor. 


112        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

She  stood  for  the  fertility  of  Nature;  her  festivals 
were  often  accompanied  by  orgiastic  rites;  she  was 
sometimes  represented  with  many  breasts,  or  again 
holding  a  child  in  her  arms;  and  with  the  Greek  and 
Roman  conquests  of  Asia  she  took  on  some  modifi- 
cations. Perhaps  her  greatest  shrine  was  at  Ephesus 
where  the  Greeks  called  her  Artemis,  that  is,  Diana. 
But  Diana  was  chaste  and  Cybele  fruitful,  and  so  Ar- 
temis of  the  Ephesians,  whose  temple  was  one  of  the 
wonders  of  the  world,  was  half  virgin,  half  mother, 
combined  the  two  adorable  conditions  of  the  goddess 
woman.  Her  cult  at  Ephesus  was  one  that  drew 
thousands  of  travellers  and  pilgrims.  It  was  sur- 
rounded with  great  magnificence,  and  was  in  large 
part  conducted  by  eunuch  priests. 

From  Ephesus,  many  years  before  Paul  carried 
Christianity  along  the  same  path,  the  worship  of 
Cybele  spread  to  Rome,  and  from  Rome  to  Italy.  In 
the  north  she  was  generally  Cybele,  the  Magna  Mater; 
in  the  south  she  was  mostly  merged  into  Diana,  the 
prevailing  cult  of  Naples  with  that  of  Apollo.  But 
without  attempting  to  note  minor  differences  one 
may  place  the  date  of  the  introduction  of  the  cult  of 
Cybele  into  Italy  at  the  second  century  before  Christ, 
and  state  that  under  the  Emperors  it  had  become 
very  prominent.  The  castrate  priests  of  the  Magna 
Mater  held  the  privilege  of  begging;  lamps  burned  at 
her  shrines,  erected  by  every  roadside;  her  festival  of 
Hilaria  was  the  most  joyful  of  the  year.  And  after 
the  great  fusion  that  the  Emperor  Constantine  ef- 
fected this  all  continued,  and  continues  to  this  day. 


FROM    A.D.    70   TO  A.D.   312  113 

save  in  its  names;  for  Cybele  gradually  and  reluct- 
antly became  Mary,  and  Hilaria  the  Carnival.  In 
Asia,  too,  the  Virgin  Artemis  was  still  worshipped  in 
the  fifth  century  as  the  mother  of  God,  in  the  pagan- 
ized Christian  Church;  while  even  to  this  day  it  is 
said  that  a  shrine  of  the  goddess  survives  near  Lake 
Hoiran  that  yearly  draws  a  few  obscure  Christian 
devotees. 

With  Cybele  was  connected  the  god  Attis,  as  with 
Astarte  Adonis,  and  also  various  myths  of  fluctu- 
ating character,  among  them  that  of  the  new  birth 
and  the  remission  of  sins  through  baptism,  a  be- 
lief prevalent  also  among  the  Jews,  as  witnessed  by 
John  the  Baptist.  And  again  may  be  noted  that  in 
the  early  Phrygian  cults  Attis  was  the  son  of  a  virgin 
mother,  the  goddess  Nana.  And  of  these  hellenized 
Asiatic  gods,  of  such  chameleonlike,  interchangeable 
personality  and  attributes,  Cybele  and  Attis  made 
the  greatest  mark  in  Italy,  Adonis  and  Astarte  the 
least. 

And  Egypt  too  was  to  contribute  her  quota.  Her 
great  goddess  Isis  possessed  many  attributes  in  com- 
mon with  Cybele  and  Astarte,  as  well  as  others  pecu- 
liar to  the  Egyptian  mythology.  To  her  was  joined 
the  god  Osiris,  identified  with  the  sun  god  Ra,  whose 
chief  mystery  or  myth,  that  of  death  and  resurrection, 
was  similar  to  that  of  his  Syrian  neighbour  Adonis. 
In  later  times  Horus  was  joined  to  these  two  by  the 
force  of  the  Trinitarian  idea  then  prevalent  in  Egyp- 
tian theology.  But  it  was  Isis  that  took  the  chief 
place. 


114.        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

In  Egypt,  as  in  Asia,  hellenization  took  place. 
The  riotous  imagination  and  latent  scepticism  of  the 
Greeks  acted  as  a  corrosive  solvent  on  the  ancient 
mythologies.  For  the  scantiest  of  reasons  they  identi- 
fied Isis,  as  they  had  Astarte,  with  Demeter,  who  in 
turn  was  identified  with  the  Latin  Ceres.  In  due 
course,  though  Egyptian  influence  spread  to  Rome 
far  more  slowly  than  Asiatic,  Isis  made  her  way  to 
the  capital  of  the  Empire.  And  it  may  be  that  her  first 
popularity  there  was  due  to  the  fact  that  among 
other  attributes  of  fecundity  she  held  those  of  wheat 
or  bread,  the  product  of  the  inundations  of  the  Nile, 
the  support  of  the  Roman  capital.  But  as  her  cult 
prospered  and  became  that  of  the  fashionable  ladies 
of  Rome,  so  this  same  disintegrating  influence  of 
the  Greek  imagination  began  to  reduce  her  functions 
to  an  absurdity  by  mere  multiplication.  Here  are 
the  attributes  which  a  poet  of  the  second  century 
A.D.  puts  into  the  goddess'  mouth :  "I  am  the  univer- 
sal Mother  Nature,  Mistress  of  the  elements,  first 
born  of  the  ages,  supreme  Goddess,  Queen  of  names. 
Ruler  and  sole  emanation  of  all  divinities,  whose 
glance  makes  awful  silence  in  the  shining  heights 
of  heaven,  in  the  deeps  of  Ocean,  and  in  the  un- 
der world;  whose  immutable  being  is  variously  wor- 
shipped, with  many  rites,  in  many  names,  as  Mother 
of  the  Gods,  Cecropian  Minerva,  Paphian  Venus, 
Dictynnian  Diana,  Stygian  Proserpine,  the  ancient 
goddess  Ceres,  Juno,  Bellona,  Hecate,  Rhamnusia, — 
but  whose  true  name  is  Queen  Isis."^  And  an  inscrip- 
^  Apuleius,  Golden  Ass,  Met.  xi. 


FROM  A.D.  70   TO  A.D.   312  115 

tion  declares:  "I  am  that  which  is,  which  has  been, 
and  which  shall  be.  My  veil  no  one  has  lifted.  The 
fruit  I  bore  was  the  Sun." 

Let  us  summarize  the  situation  of  Rome  and  Italy 
in  the  matter  of  religion  as  it  might  appear  in  the 
third  century.  The  old  mythology,  weakened  by  too 
frequent  infusions,  had  lost  a  great  part  of  its  hold; 
it  no  longer  made  the  appeal  to  citizenship  that  was 
possible  in  the  remote  days  of  the  tribe  or  city  state, 
and  it  no  longer  made  any  appeal  to  the  intelligence. 
Even  the  cult  of  the  Emperor,  after  the  century  of 
anarchy  that  followed  Commodus,  remained  but  a 
thin  veneer  of  custom.  As  against  this,  religion,  es- 
pecially under  Oriental  influences,  had  taken  on  more 
striking  ceremonial  aspects,  had  been  blended  with  the 
artistic  and  with  the  fashionable  life  of  Rome.  And 
ritual  such  as  that  of  the  tonsured,  bead-telling  monks 
of  Isis,  happily  combined  with  innate  superstitions 
and  love  of  mystery,  had  become  ingrained,  rooted  in 
the  habits  of  the  people.  Nothing  could  eradicate  the 
ritualistic  expression  of  religionism. 

One  word  more,  which  is  this.  The  confusion,  the 
jumble  of  deities  and  of  their  attributes  and  myths 
which  had  grown  up  in  five  hundred  years,  had  had 
a  twofold  effect.  In  one  direction  it  had  gradually 
rendered  the  outline  of  each  of  the  deities  less  and  less 
definite,  more  and  more  convertible  into  different 
terms;  in  the  other  it  had  tended  to  generalize  the 
myths  and  to  reduce  them  down  to  two  or  three  great 
ones,  that  seemed  to  float  vaguely  beneath  this  su- 
perstructure of  gods  and  goddesses,  as  the  deepest 


116        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

conceptions  of  paganism.  Among  these  ideas  were 
that  of  the  Virgin  Mother  of  God,  of  the  death  and 
resurrection  of  her  Son,  and  of  the  remission  of  sins 
and  the  entrance  into  a  new  life  through  baptism.  It 
was  in  the  midst  of  such  a  rehgious  atmosphere  that 
Aurelian  was  cast,  with  the  task  laid  on  him  of  recon- 
stituting the  world. 

Aurelian  was  a  soldier,  and  among  soldiers  the 
Persian  sun  god  Mithra  stood  highest  at  this  epoch. 
Like  one  or  two  of  his  imperial  predecessors,  Aurelian 
was  a  devotee  of  Mithra,  and  he  attempted  to  cen- 
tralize the  pagan  cults  on  the  sun,  of  whom  the  Em- 
peror might  seem  to  be  the  emanation.  Mithra  was 
one  of  the  most  ancient  myths  of  the  Aryan  tribes, 
and  can  probably  be  placed  at  a  period  anterior  to  the 
division  of  the  Hindus  and  Persians.  Among  the  latter 
it  is  not  until  after  the  creation  of  the  Persian  Empire 
in  the  sixth  century  B.C.  that  we  begin  to  get  some 
real  view  of  the  god  and  his  cult.  He  was  then  appar- 
ently identified  with  various  Semitic  deities  as,  for 
instance,  Shamash,  the  god  of  atonement  and  redemp- 
tion. It  was  not,  however,  until  after  the  fall  of  the 
Persian  and  the  creation  of  the  Greek  Empire  that 
the  cult  began  to  crystallize  into  the  form  in  which 
it  was  eventually  to  become  known  to  the  Romans. 
Its  rites  spread  mostly  in  the  upper  valley  of  the 
Euphrates,  and  the  Greek  monarchs  of  those  regions 
reveal  by  the  frequency  of  such  names  as  that  of  Mith- 
ridates  how  strong  a  hold  the  Persian  god  had  ob- 
tained. It  was  while  engaged  in  the  conquest  of  these 
regions  that  the  Roman  armies  came  into  contact 


iFROM  A.D.   70   TO  A.D.   312  117 

with  Mithra  and  fell  under  his  sway.  By  slow  stages 
his  cult  won  converts,  and  from  the  middle  of  the 
second  century,  when  all  the  Asiatic  cults  were  spread- 
ing fast,  it  had  gained  a  great  importance.  A  hundred 
years  later  the  Roman  army,  in  which  were  many 
Asiatic  soldiers,  knew  no  more  popular  god  than 
Mithra. 

The  cult  of  the  Persian  god  was  somewhat  exclu- 
sive, and  in  part  secret.  Its  adepts  formed  lodges, 
and  were  initiated  to  seven  different  degrees,  these 
degrees,  as  in  the  Christian  orders,  being  divided  into 
major  and  minor.  The  ceremonial  and  liturgy  is 
scarcely  known,  but  one  of  the  initiations  involved 
a  sacred  feast  in  which  the  devotees  partook  of  a  cup 
of  water  mixed  with  wine,  and  bread,  in  the  form 
of  ^mall  round  cakes  marked  with  the  Latin  cross; 
this  higher  form  of  initiation  ceremony  was  known 
as  a  sacr amentum.  Among  other  rites  those  of  in- 
humation and  of  baptism  deserve  a  moment's  atten- 
tion. 

The  burial  of  the  body  had  long  been  abandoned 
by  the  Greeks  and  Romans  in  favour  of  the  more  sani- 
tary practice  of  cremation.  But  the  Semitic  people, 
like  the  Jews,  continued  to  bury  their  dead,  and  this 
too  was  the  usage  of  the  followers  of  Mithra.  Now 
incineration,  for  obvious  reasons,  tends  to  minim- 
ize the  idea  of  a  future  life  in  any  but  the  most  re- 
fined spiritual  sense,  an  idea  too  elevated  and  difficult 
for  ordinary  minds.  On  the  other  hand,  the  burial 
of  the  body  tended  in  the  opposite  direction,  and,  at 
the  epoch  we  are  dealing  with,  it  was  closely  allied 


118        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

in  the  Oriental  cults  with  the  idea  of  the  resurrection 
of  the  individual  in  his  earthly  form.  And  so  it  was 
in  Mithraism,  which  looked  to  the  day  of  the  second 
coming  of  its  Redeemer  god  as  that  of  the  rising  of 
the  dead. 

Then  there  was  baptism.  This  was  more  than  a 
rite,  it  was  an  ordeal;  for  it  was  not  water  but  blood 
that  was  used.  In  the  ritual  of  Isis  a  baptism  by  total 
immersion  in  water  was  used.  In  that  of  Mithra  water 
was  also  used  for  ablutions  and  purifications,  perhaps 
much  as  in  the  Roman  Church,  a  vessel  holding 
water  being  placed  at  the  threshold  of  the  temples. 
But  the  chief  ceremony  was  the  baptism  of  blood, 
a  rite  of  Asiatic  origin,  which  had  become  preva- 
lent in  the  Roman  cult  of  Cybele  in  the  second  cen- 
tury A.D.  In  this  the  neophyte  stood  under  a  grat- 
ing, and  supported  a  shower  of  blood  drawn  from  a 
slain  bull.  To  understand  the  significa^ce  of  this  rite 
it  will  be  as  well  to  turn  first  to  the  myth  of  the 
god,  and  to  the  symbolism  and  ethics  associated 
with  it. 

Mithra  was  not  the  Almighty,  Ahura  Mazda.  He 
was  a  mediate  deity,  placed  between  heaven  and 
earth,  with  earthly  as  well  as  heavenly  attributes,  a 
mediator  between  God  and  man,  a  mediator  and  also 
a  redeemer.  Mithra  was  the  offspring  of  an  earthly 
mother  and  Ahura  Mazda.  He  was  the  hero  of  a 
number  of  legends  that  centred  about  his  labours 
for  humanity  and  his  deeds  of  soldierly  valour.  He 
was  also  the  sun,  connected  with  every  astronomical 
conception,  and  viewed  as  conqueror  when  he  en- 


FROM   A.D.    70   TO  A.D    312  119 

tered  the  constellation  of  Taurus  at  his  greatest 
height  in  heaven.^ 

It  was  the  conjunction  of  Mithra  with  the  bull,  of 
the  sun  with  Taurus,  that  gave  to  his  cult  its  most 
striking  external  feature.  In  every  temple  the  god 
was  represented  sword  inhand  stabbing  the  bull.  And 
the  blood  that  flowed  from  the  victim  was  held  to 
fructify  all  nature,  and  in  the  rite  of  baptism  was 
held  to  wash  men  from  their  sins.  Mithra  was  thus 
the  generator  or  creator,  which,  transposed  into  terms 
of  Greek  philosophy,  makes  him  equivalent  to  the 
X0709. 

In  terms  of  morality  these  myths  were  associated 
with  a  high  code  of  personal  conduct.  Purity  tending 
towards  asceticism  was  inculcated,  much  as  in  Stoic- 
ism and  Christianity.  Mithraism  had  its  vestals  and 
its  abstinents,  though  in  this  matter  it  may  merely 
have  copied  what  the  cults  of  Christ  and  of  Isis  had 
begun.  The  Mithraist  believed  in  a  future  life,  in  a 
heaven  peopled  with  angels  and  a  hell  replete  with 
highly  developed  demons  expert  in  all  forms  of  tor- 
ture. But  last  of  all,  there  was  to  be  a  resurrection  of 
the  body  at  the  second  coming  of  Mithra;  and  the  25th 
day  of  December  was  celebrated  as  that  of  his  birth, 
for  on  that  day  the  sun  rose  again  on  the  zenith. 

At  many  points,  it  will  be  seen,  Mithraism  coin- 
cided with  other  sun  cults.   And  if  the  tendencies  of 

^  The  season  coincides  with  that  at  which  Adonis  was  supposed 
to  arise  into  heaven.  The  underlying  conceptions  behind  these 
myths  are  very  fluid.  From  the  bull  to  the  paschal  lamb  and  its 
symbolic  use,  especially  iu  the  Indian  cults,  the  transition  is  slight. 


120        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

four  or  five  centuries  are  taken  as  a  whole  it  may 
be  hazarded  that  the  gradual  infusion  of  Greek  and 
Oriental  ideas  tended  to  make  of  the  representative 
of  the  sun  the  universal  god  of  paganism.  For  this, 
after  all,  was  the  supreme  manifestation  of  nature 
that  could  be  visualized;  most  phenomena  could  be 
deduced  from  this  central  one,  and  so  many  divinities 
tended  to  become  symbolic  expressions  of  the  sun. 
Let  us  now  note  some  stages  in  the  relations  of  sun 
worship  with  the  political  organization  of  the  Roman 
Empire. 

The  Greek  sovereigns  of  Egypt  had  been  divinized 
and  identified  with  the  sun  god  Ra.  It  may  be  that 
Antony,  husband  of  Kleopatra,  had  this  attribute  at- 
tached to  him.  His  successful  opponent  Augustus  was 
averse  to  the  idea  of  deification,  but  could  hardly 
prevent  the  working  of  the  Egyptian  mind  along  this 
channel.  The  first  century,  however,  was  not  import- 
ant in  this  connection,  and  it  was  not  until  the  begin- 
ning of  the  third  that  anything  approaching  the  es- 
tablishment of  the  sun  cult  as  the  state  religion  can 
be  found.  But  with  Heliogabalus  the  scene  changes. 
The  Emperor  is  an  Asiatic;  he  is  a  high  priest  of  the 
sun;  his  name  in  fact  gives  us  the  sun  god  in  a  strange 
combination  of  the  Greek  and  Semitic  Helios  and 
Baal.  But  the  time  was  hardly  ripe,  and  Heliogabalus 
was  one  of  the  worst  of  the  Emperors;  his  reign  only 
lasted  four  years,  and  was  closed  by  his  assassination. 
Half  a  century  later,  however,  with  Aurelian,  sun 
worship  at  last  came  to  its  own  as  the  state  religion. 

We  unfortunately  have  little  direct  information  as 


FROM  A.D.   70  TO  A.D.   312  121 

to  what  Aurelian  actually  accomplished.  But  appar- 
ently his  was  not  an  ejffort  to  make  Mithraism  the 
national  cult;  that  remained  an  inner  circle,  closed  as 
before  to  all  but  the  initiated.  Probably,  however, 
the  highest  adepts  of  Mithra,  the  Patres,  or  even  Pa- 
tres  Patrum,  let  us  say  high  priests  and  bishops,  took 
control  of  a  more  popular  cult  of  the  sun  intended 
for  the  masses.  A  temple  was  probably  erected  where 
St.  Peter's  now  stands,^  and  the  25th  of  December, 
sacred  to  the  unconquered  sun,  was  turned  into  a 
great  national  festival. 

Ten  years  after  Aurelian  came  Diocletian  (284-305), 
a  devotee  of  Mithra  and  an  able  and  energetic  ruler. 
With  him  Orientalism  reached  its  height,  the  court 
of  Rome  became  like  that  of  the  Persian  kings  or  the 
later  Byzantine  monapchs.  Diocletian's  reign  was 
also  marked  by  the  outburst  of  a  great  struggle  be- 
tween Christianity  and  the  latter-day  paganism,  a 
struggle  that  ended  in  the  year  312  by  the  first  great 
political  victory  of  the  new  sect.  But  before  that 
struggle  can  be  dealt  with,  we  will  first  add  a  word 
as  to  the  politico-religious  conception  associated  with 
this  sun  worship,  after  which  Christianity  must  be 

1  This  is  not  the  accepted  view,  but  there  is  substantial  ground 
for  the  conjecture,  ^neas  Sylvius  in  his  narrative  of  his  election 
to  the  Papacy  in  1458,  writes  that  his  predecessor,  Calixtus  III, 
was  buried,  "in  Basilica  Sci.  Petri  ...  in  loco  quern  vocant  S. 
Marise  Febrium,  olim  Apollinis  Templum."  This  was  perhaps 
a  part  of  the  Vatican  palace,  which  later  was  torn  down  to  make 
room  for  the  new  basilica  of  Bramante  and  Michael  Angelo.  The 
temple  of  Apollo,  therefore,  probably  coincided  with  some  part  of 
the  southeastern  section  of  the  present  cathedral. 


122        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

brought  down  from  the  year  70  to  303  when  took 
place  the  great  persecution  of  Diocletian. 

During  the  three  centuries  in  which  we  have  seen 
the  idea  of  the  deification  of  the  Emperors  used  for 
strengthening  their  power,  certain  modifications  had 
taken  place.  Although  Oriental  example  was  behind 
it  at  the  start,  yet  in  the  earliest  stages  perhaps  the 
juristic  concept  that  the  deification  of  the  individual 
raised  him  above  the  law  was  its  most  important  ele- 
ment. In  the  later  phases  it  is  clearly  the  Oriental, 
and  specifically  the  Persian  ideas  that  predominate. 
In  these  the  sovereign  is  not  a  god,  but  over  him  there 
is  diffused  the  glory  and  the  grace  of  God.  The  sun  is 
the  guardian  of  the  Emperor,  and  the  strict  doctrine 
declares  that  he  is  not  of  the  same  substance  as  god, 
though  perhaps,  and  it  is  infinitely  debatable,  of  like 
substance.  Hence,  according  to  Cumont,  the  sur- 
names that  the  Emperors  begin  to  adopt  in  this  later 
period,  —  Felix,  Pius,  and  others,  denoting  the  grace 
that  heaven  endues  them  with.  These  names  were  in 
due  course  to  be  continued  by  the  Popes,  so  that  the 
twentieth  century  may  yet  revere  in  a  successor  of 
St.  Peter  an  attributive  name  that  declares  the  al- 
mightiness  of  the  grace  of  Ahura  Mazda. 

It  would  be  misleading  to  think  of  the  Christian 
Church  as  an  organized  unit  during  the  period  that 
preceded  Constantine.  Its  course  in  Asia,  in  Egypt, 
in  Rome,  was  in  many  particulars  different.  From 
the  time  of  Paul  to  the  close  of  the  second  cen- 
tury Asia  Minor  was  the  chief  centre  of  the  new 


FROM  A.D.    70   TO   A.D.  312  123 

religion.  It  was  Greek  in  its  thought,  and  though 
fast  developing  the  ritual  and  creed  that  finally 
emerged  at  the  beginning  of  the  fourth  century, 
and  in  that  particular  becoming  more  strongly  or- 
ganized, in  other  ways  it  deteriorated.  The  Church 
became  larger,  more  popular,  more  worldly,  and  it 
resisted  less  strongly  the  overpowering  force  of  the 
undercurrents  of  popular  myth,  tradition  and  cere- 
monial. By  the  middle  or  end  of  the  second  century 
Christianity  is  stronger  in  numbers,  less  strong  in 
faith  and  exclusiveness.  The  pagan  and  Christian 
beliefs  tend  closer  to  each  other;  religion  is  tolerant, 
glad  to  compromise;  it  becomes  almost  possible  to 
worship  both  Jesus  and  Caesar. 

In  the  third  century,  religious  communities  of  Asia 
Minor  unite  the  cult  of  God  and  the  Emperor.  But 
the  vow  to  the  Emperor  is  anti-Christian,  though  it 
tends  in  the  Christian  religion  towards  unification 
under  a  supreme  deity;  for  if  the  Emperor  should 
turn  Christian,  then  the  community  would  readily 
shift  its  allegiance.  On  the  whole  there  is  marked 
loss  of  faith  in  the  details  of  Christian  doctrine,  but 
increasing  faith  in  the  doctrines  that  underlie  Christ- 
ianity, and  Stoicism,  and  sun  worship,  every  form  of 
universal  and  ethical  religion.  Faith  and  fashion 
blend  with  this  an  increasing  Oriental  mysticism 
translated  into  terms  of  Greek  philosophy,  —  and  this 
brings  us  to  Egypt. 

So  late  as  the  end  of  the  second  century  there  was 
apparently  no  settled  Christian  rite  at  Alexandria, 
while  the  New  Testament  writings  were  not  yet  codi- 


124        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

fied.  This  is  all  the  more  remarkable  when  one  re- 
members how  close  Alexandria  was  to  Jerusalem  both 
in  space  and  in  race.  It  was  Asia  Minor,  the  seat 
of  Paul's  activity,  that  had  seen  the  real  develop- 
ment, and  Rome  was  the  natural  goal  of  Asia  Minor. 
Yet  at  Alexandria  were  working  certain  forces  that 
were  to  add  another  great  element  to  the  work  of 
Paul.  Those  forces  we  have  already  seen  at  work  in 
the  philosophy  of  Philo. 

The  hellenization  of  Jewish  thought  in  Egypt  had 
begun  with  the  earliest  monarchs  of  the  house  of  Pto- 
lemy and  the  creation  of  the  Septuagint  version  of 
the  Hebrew  Old  Testament.  Philo  fused  the  Jewish 
and  Greek  philosophy,  and  shortly  after  his  death, 
perhaps  in  the  last  years  of  the  first  century,^  the  new 
Grseco-Jewish  mysticism  which  he  had  helped  to  cre- 
ate began  to  work  its  way  into  Christianity  in  a  per- 
ceptible and  lasting  form.  One  part  of  this  process 
resulted  in  the  writing  of  the  gospel  and  the  Apo- 
calypse of  John,  and  by  John  nothing  more  is  meant 
than  a  writer  of  the  epoch,  for  as  to  whether  these 
works  were  the  actual  composition  of  the  apostle 
John  or  not  is  a  controversial  question  that  fortun- 
ately has  no  bearing  on  what  will  be  said  here. 

The  Apocalypse  represents  the  point  in  the  New 
Testament  where  the  older  strain  of  Jewish  prophet- 

^  The  date  given  will  perhaps  satisfy  nobody;  for  some  scholars 
attempt  to  place  it  as  early  as  before  a.d.  70,  others  as  late  as  135; 
Baur  indeed,  even  later.  After  considering  their  arguments,  the 
statement  made  here  does  not  seem  to  mislead  in  any  essential 
way.  The  later  dates  seem  open  to  grave  objections. 


FROM  A.D.    70   TO  A.D.   312  125 

ism  succeeded  in  retaining  a  foothold.  The  book  is  a 
composite,  both  in  its  Hterary  form  and  in  its  re- 
Hgious  views,  and  contains  ante-Christian  elements. 
It  shows  Greek  and  Alexandrian  influence  to  a  very 
slight  extent  only,  differing  in  that  respect  from 
the  gospel,  and  in  places  it  points  directly  to  the  Sy- 
rian and  Asiatic  cults.  The  two  first  verses  are  full 
of  suggestion:  "John,  to  the  seven  churches  which 
are  in  Asia:  Grace  be  unto  you,  and  peace,  from  him 
which  is,  and  which  was,  and  which  is  to  come;  and 
from  the  seven  Spirits  which  are  before  his  throne; 
and  from  Jesus  Christ  who  is  the  faithful  witness, 
and  the  first  begotten  of  the  dead,  and  the  prince  of 
the  things  of  the  earth.  Unto  him  that  loved  us,  and 
washed  us  from  our  sins  in  his  own  blood.  .  .  ." 

In  the  Gospel  of  John  we  have  the  work  of  a  prac- 
tised literary  hand,  whose  statements  of  fact  are 
often  at  variance  with  the  synoptic  gospels,  and  for 
many  reasons  command  less  confidence.  But  the 
statements  of  fact  are  not  what  is  of  chief  import- 
ance in  John;  it  is  the  doctrine,  the  beliefs.  And  first 
we  note  the  immense  extension  which  the  divine  idea 
has  taken  on.  The  association  of  the  idea  of  a  redeemer 
god,  like  Shamash  or  Mithra,  with  Jesus  is  complete, 
where  in  the  synoptics  it  was  vague.  "  Behold  the 
lamb  of  God  that  taketh  away  the  sins  of  the  world ! " 
The  holy  spirit,  the  grace  of  God,  is  visualized  as  a 
dove  descending  from  Heaven.  But  chief  of  all  is  the 
mystico-religious  metaphysical  conception  of  Jesus  as 
the  X070?,  the  word  of  God.  But  the  X070?  may  be 
identified  with  the  divine  grace  of  the  Persian  cults. 


126        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

with  the  active  principle  of  the  world  of  the  Stoics, 
with  the  Divine  Reason,  the  Power  of  all  Powers,  the 
cosmic  idea,  the  beginning,  the  firstborn  son  of  or 
second  God,  —  the  highest  concept  of  Philo.  Though 
unwavering  in  his  adherence  to  Judaism,  Philo's  in- 
sistence is  more  on  the  Law  than  on  the  prophets, 
more  on  an  all-pervading  and  incomprehensible  deity 
than  on  Jehovah;  and  he  deals  but  slightly  with  the 
Messianic  prophecies.  That  is  also  the  character  of 
the  gospel  of  John  as  compared  with  the  synoptic 
gospels. 

In  the  thought  of  Alexandria  three  stages  are 
clearly  marked  by  Philo,  Clement  and  Plotinus.  Philo, 
the  contemporary  of  Jesus  and  Paul,  we  have  now 
done  with;  Clement  lived  in  the  second  half  of  the 
second  century,  and  his  work  was  the  attempt  to  bring 
together  the  philosophy  of  Philo  and  Christianity;  to 
make  of  religion  the  equivalent  of  philosophy.  Paul 
had  preached  that  the  Law  was  the  teacher  that  led 
men  to  Jesus;  Clement  substituted  Greek  philosophy 
for  the  Law,  which  meant  in  one  sense  the  following 
out  of  tendencies  that  had  first  appeared  soon  after 
the  death  of  Jesus,  and  in  another  the  intellectualiz- 
ing  of  Christianity.  But  although  the  history  of 
the  Church  in  Egypt  is  very  obscure  before  Clement, 
yet  it  would  appear  that  in  his  time  it  had  already 
become  a  considerable  community  so  that  the  placing 
of  Christianity  on  this  basis  could  lead  Clement  to  no 
other  position  than  that  there  must  be  two  Christ- 
ianities, just  as  a  century  later  Aurelian  and  his  re- 
ligious advisers  decided  that  there  must  be  two  sun 


FROM  A.D.    70   TO  A.D.   312  127 

cults.  According  to  Clement  there  must  be  an  inner 
Christianity,  a  gnosis,  or  wisdom,  of  Christianity,  for 
the  intellectual  aristocracy,  and  a  popular  Christian- 
ity for  the  masses.  Let  us  view  each  of  these  aspects 
of  the  case 

First  of  all,  what  were  the  essential  features  of 
Clement's  teaching  and  how  far  did  it  affect  the 
Church?  One  of  the  fundamental  positions  of  the 
new  religion  was  already  that  the  redemption  of 
men's  souls  from  sin  was  effected  through  faith  in 
Jesus  Christ.  This  doctrine  was  intellectualized  and 
refined  by  Clement  into  this,  that  the  human  spirit 
was  redeemed  from  the  evil  influence  of  material 
things  by  the  study  of  religious  knowledge.  Con- 
verted into  different  terms  this  meant  that  salvation 
depended  on  the  study  of  the  literature  of  Christian- 
ity in  the  same  spirit  that  the  Alexandrians  had  for 
so  long  been  criticising  and  distorting  the  texts  of 
Homer,  and  Plato,  and  ^schylus.  The  first  duty  of 
man  was  no  longer  plainly  to  carry  out  the  code  of 
practical  ethics  laid  down  by  Christ  and  Paul,  but  it 
was  rather  to  become  united  with  the  Primal  Cause 
through  gnosis  and  the  separation  of  the  spirit  from 
the  body. 

This  scheme  of  religion  partly  failed  and  partly  suc- 
ceeded. Gnosticism,  in  its  various  forms,  was  soon  re- 
jected as  a  heresy.  The  great  middle  stream  of  Christ- 
ianity swept  by  leaving  it  to  eddy  on  one  side.  And 
probably  the  principal  reason  for  its  ill  success  may 
fairly  be  stated  in  these  terms,  that  instinctively 
those  who  guided  Christianity  realized  that  the  re- 


128        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

ligion  was  imperial,  for  all  men,  and  that  there  lay  its 
force.  Gnosticism  could  never  be  much  more  than  a 
mode  of  thought,  a  possible  rival  of  Stoicism.  And 
yet,  even  if  Gnosticism  was  destined  to  fail  as  a  sys- 
tem, it  was  not  without  influence.  Its  tortuous  inter- 
pretations and  mystical  character  tended  more  and 
more  to  filter  into  the  Christian  creed,  while  Clement 
was  merely  the  precursor  of  Plotinus. 

Plotinus  was  bord*  in  the  year  205,  shortly  before 
the  death  of  Clement.  But  although  he  carried  the 
thought  of  his  time  beyond  the  point  it  had  already 
reached,  it  was  as  a  pagan  and  not  as  a  Christian. 
The  underlying  tendencies  were  the  same,  however, 
and  Plotinus  was  a  great  factor  in  forming  the  Christ- 
ian creed.  Most  of  his  teaching  was  done  in  Rome 
where,  during  an  evil  period  in  which  the  Empire  ap- 
peared to  be  fast  sinking,  he  drew  to  his  lectures  the 
men  and  women  of  conscience  and  higher  aspirations 
who  were  yet  to  be  found  in  the  capital  of  the  world. 
In  a  sense,  his  teaching  was  the  continuation  of  that  of 
Philo,  of  the  Stoics,  of  Clement,  but  his  school  became 
known  as  that  of  the  Neo-Platonists  because  his  prin- 
cipal line  of  thought  derived  directly  from  Plato's 
dualistic  conception.  He  sought  unity  by  combining 
the  Oriental  doctrine  of  the  emanations  of  the  Al- 
mighty with  the  Platonic  doctrines,  and  so  powerful 
were  his  concepts,  that  pagan  Greek  philosophy  in 
this  its  latest  form  was  to  stand  up  as  a  formidable 
rival  to  Christianity  for  another  two  hundred  years 
and  more. 

The  unity  that  Plotinus  strove  for  was  an  idea  long 


FROM   A.D.   70  TO   A.D.    312  129 

current  in  Greek  thought,  curiously  expressed  in  its 
art,  and  in  a  certain  perversion  which  that  art  loved 
to  dwell  on.  The  same  idea  found  ample  literary 
expression,  and,  in  the  highest  philosophical  form  such 
as  Plotinus  gave  it,  turned  on  the  merging  of  the  sub- 
jective with  the  objective.  This  was  achieved  in  the 
conception  of  an  objective  Trinitarian  God,  a  most 
ancient  Egyptian  religious  idea,  closely  akin  to  the 
X070?  of  Philo  and  John;  and  in  the  striving  for  the 
absorption  of  individual  man  into  the  incomprehensi- 
ble Trinity  through  contemplation.  This  divinity,  — 
Unity,  Trinity,  Primitive  Light,  —  contained  within  it 
three  viroaraae^,  or  forms.  It  was  not  to  be  thought  of 
as  a  concrete  thing,  but  as  the  principle  of  all  things. 
Such  were  the  ideas  that  Plotinus  taught  in  Rome  at 
the  close  of  the  third  century,  in  the  years  immedi- 
ately preceding  the  accession  of  the  Emperor  Aure- 
lian.  And  those  ideas  spread  chiefly  in  the  class  that 
was  soon  to  give  Christianity  many  of  its  best  recruits. 
The  evidence  is  pretty  clear  that  for  nearly  two 
hundred  years  after  Paul  the  growth  of  Christianity 
was  very  slow,  but  that  about  the  middle  of  the  third 
century  a  rapid  increase  took  place.  At  the  close  of 
that  century  Christianity  had  become  a  direct  men- 
ace to  the  Empire  and  a  struggle  was  entered  on  that 
almost  openly  took  on  this  character.  The  persecu- 
tions of  the  Christians  under  Nero  and  Domitian  had 
been  cruel  blows  aimed  at  a  despised  and  hated  sect  in 
which  Judaism  appeared  to  be  the  chief  constituent. 
But  in  135  a.d.  Christianity  sloughs  off  Judaism,  and 
takes  on  an  almost  purely  Greek  aspect.  Persecution 


130        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

relaxes.  The  sect  is  still  small,  but  organizes  and 
pushes  out  into  the  western  parts  of  the  Empire  where 
it  was  to  find  its  strongest  elements.  In  250  comes  the 
persecution  of  Decius,  an  attempt  by  striking  at  the 
heads  of  the  Church  to  put  down  a  criminal  cult,  — 
criminal  in  that  it  forbids  the  national  cult  of  the 
Emperor.  And  when  persecution  begins  again,  in  a 
much  more  drastic  form  under  Diocletian,  in  303,  it  is 
because  the  Church  is  so  rapidly  increasing  in  num- 
bers that  the  Emperors  are  definitely  threatened  in 
their  very  existence. 

In  trying  to  understand  the  reason  for  this  great 
increase  of  the  Christians,  we  can  only  be  concerned 
here  with  the  movement  of  the  larger  causes,  if  we 
can  succeed  in  estimating  them  fairly.  The  visible 
decline  of  the  Empire,  the  ceaseless  succession  of  wars 
and  pestilence,  the  economic  breakdown  that  marked 
the  third  century,  all  tended  to  turn  men's  minds  from 
material  success  to  moral  consolation.  The  unifica- 
tion of  paganism  on  sun  worship  did  not  fully  accom- 
plish its  objects;  it  could  not  quite  supply  an  ethical 
standard  for  the  mass,  nor  could  it  quite  revivify  the 
older  idea  of  the  divinity  of  the  Emperor.  And  in  any 
case,  at  the  close  of  the  third  century,  the  efforts  of 
the  Emperors  to  keep  things  together  had  taken  a 
new  turn;  the  Empire  had  been  divided  into  two, 
three  and  even  six  parts,  in  the  hope  of  thus  secur- 
ing efficient  administration.  Such  a  division  could  not 
assist  the  central  religious  idea  connected  w^ith  sun 
worship. 

In  the  civil  wars  that  followed  the  abdication  of 


FROM   A.D.    70   TO   A.D.   312  131 

Diocletian  (305)  it  may  be  inferred  that  Christianity 
played  what  proved  in  the  outcome  to  be  the  decisive 
role.  The  violent  persecution  of  Diocletian  had  set 
an  object  for  the  Christians  to  attain,  an  object  now 
not  beyond  their  reach.  Their  numbers  were  im- 
portant. In  Italy,  and  Gaul,  and  Britain  they  were 
recruited  mainly  from  the  upper  classes,  soldiers,  ad- 
ministrators, merchants.  Their  organization  was  ex- 
clusive, and  gave  advantages  for  concerted  action  in 
many  towns,  in  many  provinces.  If  for  instance,  the 
word  was  passed  through  the  Christian  churches  of 
Britain  that  its  members  should  offer  a  tacit  opposi- 
tion to  a  governor  or  Emperor,  —  that  might  be  a 
political  factor  of  the  gravest  moment. 

The  civil  war  lasted  six  years,  and  saw  six  claimants 
to  the  Empire.  In  the  year  312,  as  Constantine  with 
the  legions  of  Britain  and  Gaul  marched  on  Rome, 
held  by  his  rival  Maxentius,  he  decided  to  adopt 
Christianity.  With  attendant  miracles  similar  to 
those  which  Castor  and  Pollux  had  performed  many 
centuries  earlier  for  the  army  of  the  infant  republic, 
Constantine  swept  his  rival  away  and  entered  Rome, 
to  plant  there  the  sign  of  the  so-called  Latin  cross, 
which  still  remains  there  after  sixteen  hundred  years. 
The  action  of  the  one  all  important  individual  in  the 
Empire  had  suddenly  altered  the  whole  complexion 
of  things,  and  Christianity  had  now  accomplished 
the  last  stage  of  the  difficult  journey  from  Jerusalem 
to  Rome. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE   CONVERSION   OF   CONSTANTINE 

The  tendencies  of  Christianity  had  changed  during 
these  three  centuries  of  its  existence.  At  first,  in  the 
hands  of  Peter  and  his  Jewish  followers,  the  second 
coming  of  Jesus  had  been  its  chief  article  of  faith. 
That  belief  had  gradually  become  less  prominent 
in  the  course  of  three  hundred  years  and  with  the 
conversion  of  Constantino  something  totally  different 
replaced  it,  which  was  the  triumph  of  Christianity. 
At  the  beginning  of  the  fourth  century  this  was  the 
great  preoccupation,  this  was  the  great  fact.  In  312 
the  Emperor  is  converted;  in  313  he  issues  a  decree 
placing  Christianity  on  an  equality  with  the  other 
religions  of  the  world.  But  Christianity  rejects 
equality,  and  the  question  really  is,  will  it  move  from 
the  new  vantage-ground  to  the  complete  defeat  of 
paganism? 

The  organization  of  the  Church  too  had  changed. 
In  the  early  days  there  had  been  merely  congrega- 
tions after  the  Jewish  manner,  centring  on  a  syna- 
gogue or  similar  building,  in  which  individuals  took 
the  lead  as  interpreters  of  the  Scriptures.  And  among 
such  individuals  a  few  greater  ones,  apostles,  mission- 
aries, were  viewed  as  leaders,  and,  from  the  earliest 
times,  some  of  them  had  been  roughly  designated  as 
commissioners  or  overseers,  —  'eTriWoTroi,  whence  our 


THE  CONVERSION  OF  CONSTANTINE      133 

modern  word  bishop.  Another  word  of  the  same  kind 
was  in  very  early  use,  presbyter,  or  priest,  but  at  first 
there  was  no  strict  differentiation  between  presbyter 
and  bishop,  and  no  definition  of  their  vague  functions; 
while  the  Pauline  writings  show  clearly  that  the  prac- 
tice of  the  early  Christians  was  to  settle  their  affairs 
by  the  vote  of  the  whole  congregation. 

But  the  tendency  asserted  itself  to  delegate  and 
vest  this  power  in  the  leaders.   By  the  end  of  the  sec- 
ond century  the  priest  and  the  bishop  were  fully  devel- 
oped into  much  the  same  functions  and  relations  as 
those  which  hold  to-day.  The  priest  was  ordained  by 
the  bishop,  though  occasionally  as  late  as  the  fourth  cen- 
tury by  other  priests,  and  the  bishop  was  elected  by  his 
people,  and  ordained  and  anointed  by  another  bishop. 
In  the  city  of  Rome  a  small  Christian  community 
was  already  in  existence  when  Paul  journeyed  there, 
and  when  Peter,  perhaps,  did  the  same.  That  com- 
munity went  through  great  vicissitudes;  it  was  long 
obscure,  small,  and  exotic,  —  that  is,  Greek-speaking. 
Yet  it  clearly  had  a  continuous  existence.  It  occa- 
sionally emerges  into  historical  light  with  personages 
whose  record  has  reached  the  present  age.    It  must 
of  necessity  have  gone  through  the  same  sort  of  evo- 
lution as  the  other  Christian  communities;  and  after 
the  middle  of  the  second  century  the  facts  concerning 
it  may,  in  a  rough  way,  be  ascertained.  The  Roman 
Church,  however,  has  long  insisted  on  the  traditional 
authority  conferred  on  it  by  an  imagined  continuity 
between  Peter  and  Paul  and  the  Popes.    It  abandons 
as  worthless  that  real  continuity  which  carries  it  back 


134        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

beyond  the  earliest  Pontifex  Maximus  of  Rome  to  the 
shadowy  priest  who  defended  the  sacred  grove  of 
Nemi  with  his  Hfe,  for  a  spurious  descent  from  Paul 
and  Ezekiel  and  the  line  of  the  circumcised  prophets 
of  Israel.  The  specific  continuity  is,  in  fact,  incap- 
able of  proof,  nor  is  it  important,  whatever  volume 
of  energy  may  have  been  expended  in  discussing  it. 
The  real  point  is  that  the  Roman  Church,  when  Con- 
stantine  joined  it  in  312,  was  a  very  different  organ- 
ization from  the  early  Christian  communities.  As 
for  the  theologians  who  defend  the  direct  succession 
of  its  bishops  from  Jesus  through  Peter  and  Paul,  it 
is  difficult  to  refrain  from  quoting  a  great  controver- 
sialist of  the  eighteenth  century  who  declared  of  one 
of  his  opponents:  "There  are  more  traces  of  a  disin- 
genuous mind  in  Mr.  Davis  than  there  are  of  an  epis- 
copal succession  in  the  Epistle  of  Clement."  ^ 

The  push  of  the  Christians  of  the  western  half  of 
the  Empire  had  helped  Constantine  to  win  the  throne. 
The  question  now  presented  itself  as  to  how  the  Em- 
peror would  repay  the  debt  he  had  incurred  .^^  He 
came  from  a  family  in  which  Christianity  had  al- 
ready obtained  a  foothold,  yet  the  evidence  is  fairly 
clear  that  there  was  no  strong  degree  of  personal  con- 
viction in  the  step  he  had  taken.  It  was  far  more 
a  political  than  a  religious  act.  But,  although  it  is 
most  probable  that  self-interest  rather  than  faith 
prompted  the  act  of  Constantine,  it  inevitably  brought 
about  a  great  change.  In  thirteen  years  Christianity 
took  a  great  stride  in  advance,  by  formulating  its  be- 
^  Gibbon,  A  Vindication^  ...  p.  1. 


THE  CONVERSION  OF  CONSTANTINE      135 

liefs  at  the  first  general  council  of  the  Church  held 
at  Nicsea  in  325. 

Until  the  Council  of  Nicsea  it  cannot  be  said  that 
Christianity  had  a  definitely  fixed  creed.  There  was 
at  best  a  central  line  of  thought,  with  a  great  many 
congregations  more  or  less  removed  from  orthodoxy. 
Among  these  we  have  already  noted  the  Ebionites 
and  the  Gnostics,  and  to  these  two  may  be  added  the 
followers  of  Marcion  in  the  second  half  of  the  second 
century,  the  Antinomians,  Patripassians,  Montan- 
ists,  Novatians,  in  the  third.  These,  it  must  be  un- 
derstood, were  merely  the  outstanding  variations 
among  many,  and  now  that  Christianity  had  reached 
the  throne  an  immediate  need  for  avoiding  further 
dissensions  was  felt. 

There  was  a  pressing  present  case  of  deviation 
that  required  a  solution  in  the  interests  of  peace  and 
harmony,  the  controversy  between  Arius  and  Atha- 
nasius.  Arius  held  a  doctrine  based  on  a  latent  recog- 
nition of  the  human  nature  of  Jesus,  but  tinged  su- 
perficially by  a  philosophical  mysticism  of  the  same 
type  as  that  which  the  teachings  of  Philo,  Clement, 
and  Plotinus  had  made  well-nigh  universal  among  the 
intellectuals  of  the  age.  He  believed  that  God  the 
Father,  God  the  Son,  and  God  the  Holy  Ghost  were 
not  equal  and  consubstantial  (homoousion) ,  but 
that  God  the  Son  was  only  of  like  nature  {hornoiou- 
sion)  with  God  the  Father,  who  was  the  superior 
deity. ^  The  danger  of  this  doctrine  from  the  Christ- 

^  In  the  strictest  possible  sense  Arius  was  less  the  protagonist 
of  the  homoiousion  position  than  the  opponent  of  the  opposite  one. 


136        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

ian  point  of  view  was  that  it  tended  to  emphasize 
the  supremacy  of  a  universal  but  unthinkable  deity, 
and  therefore  to  reduce  Jesus  to  a  prophetic  rank, 
while  the  more  prevalent  mystical  doctrine,  and  one 
that  fitted  the  hellenization  and  orientalization  of  the 
cults  of  the  Roman  world,  tended  to  confuse  man  and 
god,  and  to  build  around  the  central  figure  of  Jesus 
the  structure  of  allegory,  myth,  and  ritual  that  alone 
could  give  concrete  symbols  and  satisfaction  to  the 
large  proportion  of  mankind. 

During  the  civil  wars  that  followed  the  retirement 
of  Diocletian,  and  with  Constantine  on  the  throne, 
Arius  rapidly  became  the  storm  centre  of  Christianity. 
His  influence  was  strongly  disruptive.  But  the  new 
Emperor  was  concerned  to  bring  his  new  religion 
into  the  service  of  the  State,  and  this  could  only  be 
done  by  a  strict  centralization  and  unification.  He 
frequently  presided  over  meetings  of  bishops,  and 
tended  to  create  from  the  Christian  episcopal  organ- 
ization a  new  wheel  in  the  machine  of  government. 
But  Arianism  meant  disintegration,  and  Constantine 
decided  that  Christianity  must  formulate  its  beliefs 
into  a  well-defined,  accepted,  and  enforceable  code. 
To  accomplish  this  end  he  resolved  to  call  together 
a  council  of  all  the  bishops  of  the  Church,  the  first 
general  or  (Ecumenic  Council.  It  came  together  at 
Nicsea  in  the  thirteenth  year  of  his  reign. 

Over  three  hundred  bishops,  and  many  hundreds 
of  priests,  deacons,  and  acolytes,  gathered  at  Nicsea. 
They  were  for  the  most  part  zealous  believers,  or  dis- 
believers, in  the  doctrine  of  Arius.  For  the  first  time 


THE  CONVERSION  OF  CONSTANTINE      137 

the  Mediterranean  world  saw  vividly  displayed  that 
bastard  form  of  faith,  dogmatic  conviction,  which 
Europe  was  fated   to  inherit  from  Greece,  and   to 
suffer  from  for  so  many  centuries.   One  frenzied  sect 
was  ready  to  go  to  the  stake  for  their  belief  that  God 
the  Father  and  God  the  Son  were  Homoousioi,  and 
the  other  for  the  belief  that  they  were  Homoiousioi. 
Even  now,  in  nearly  two  thousand  years,  the  world 
has  hardly  yet  discovered  that  they  were  only  attempt- 
ing to  measure  the  most  unfathomable  of  facts  with 
formulas  and  criticisms  adapted  to  no  higher  purposes 
than  those  of  a  deplorably  decadent  school  of  gram- 
marians.   Let  us  dispose  in  a  few  words  of  what  the 
Church  did  establish  as  its  creed  by  the  operation 
of  its  early  councils,  so  as  to  leave  as  soon  as  possi- 
ble a  subject  so  humiliating  to  human  intelligence. 
The  Council  of  Nicsea,  under  popular  pressure,  de- 
cided that  Jesus  was  uXtjO^^,  truly  God,  that  of  Con- 
stantinople in  381,  that  he  was  reXem,  perfect  man, 
that  of  Ephesus  in  431,  that  he  was   aBiaLpeTmy  in- 
di visibly  God-man,  and  that  of  Chalcedon,  in  451, 
that   he   was  axcop  La-ray;^   distinctly  God  and  man. 
Had  the  Emperors  consistently  and  successfully  main- 
tained their  divinity,   it  is  probably  in  about  the 
same  terms  that  the  Greeks  would  have  defined  it. 

The  Council  of  Nicsea  further  settled  some  matters 
of  Church  discipline  and  organization,  such  as  the 
election  of  bishops,  and  it  gave  its  name  to  the  Ni- 
cene  Creed.  That  creed  is  too  universally  known  to 
require  statement;  it  will  suffice  to  say  that  every 
element.  Christian,  pagan,  and  philosophical,  from 


138        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

which  it  was  compounded  has  been  set  forth  in 
these  pages.  It  merely  focussed  the  highly  composite 
Christian  beliefs  of  that  age  into  a  standard  formula 
which  has  retained  its  efficacy  down  to  our  own  time. 

Arius  failed.  The  struggle  was  not  without  vicissi- 
tudes, however,  and  it  was  long  protracted.^  His  en- 
emies found  a  notable  leader  in  Athanasius,  whose 
creed,  a  large  amplification  of  that  of  Nicsea,  was 
also  to  find  its  way  into  the  liturgy  of  the  Church. 
But  why  dwell  on  these  dogmatic  dissensions  when 
the  fundamental  point,  after  all,  was  that  the  peasant 
of  Galilee,  whose  speech  was  Aramaic,  whose  mind 
was  so  simple  and  direct,  would  never  have  recog- 
nized in  these  subtleties,  these  frantic  death  struggles 
of  the  moribund  Greek  intellect,  the  teaching  which 
he  attempted  to  set  before  mankind.  All  we  need 
dwell  on  these  creeds  for  is  to  see  in  them  a  certain 
landmark,  the  end  of  a  certain  well-defined  phase. 
With  them,  the  formative  period  of  Christianity  closes, 
and  the  religion  has  become  rigidly  constitutionalized. 

Connected  with  the  name  of  Constantine,  and  with 
the  great  changes  effected  during  his  reign,  are  cer- 
tain other  matters  that  cannot  be  omitted.  His  atti- 
tude in  the  religious  question  was  marked  by  several 
incidents.  On  occupying  Rome  after  his  victory  over 
Maxentius,  he  immediately  proclaimed  himself  Pon- 
tifex  Maximus,  head  of  the  Roman  religion;  and  this 
marks  the  point  of  entry  of  that  title  and  of  that  of- 

1  Modern  unitarlanism  is  only  in  the  remotest  possible  sense  a 
continuation  of  Arianism.  Historically  there  is  no  real  connec- 
tion. 


THE  CONVERSION  OF  CONSTANTINE      139 

fice,  —  held  as  these  hnes  are  written  by  Pope  Pius 
X,  —  into  the  Christian  Church.  In  324  he  ampli- 
fied the  decrees  favouring  Christianity  by  proclaim- 
ing it  the  state  religion,  by  ordering  the  temples  to  be 
closed,  and  sacrifice  to  cease.  In  337  he  was  baptized, 
an  act  of  seeming  faith  that  came  within  a  few  weeks 
of  his  death.  Alongside  of  these  facts,  there  were  le- 
gends of  a  later  period  which  historical  criticism  has 
now  swept  away,  among  them  that  of  his  baptism 
by  Sylvester,  Bishop  of  Rome,  that  of  his  donation 
of  temporal  power  to  the  same  bishop,  and  that  of  the 
grant  of  the  presidency  of  the  Council  of  Nicsea  to 
Sylvester's  representative  there. 

In  all  this  not  a  word  has  been  said  so  far  of  pa- 
ganism and  of  philosophy.  Yet  Christianity  did  not 
triumph  without  a  struggle,  without  paying  a  price. 
And  the  price  was  that,  as  she  suddenly  unfolded  her 
arms  as  a  state  religion  to  the  people  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean world,  when  she  had  closed  them  again  she 
was  found  to  have  embraced  not  only  the  people  of 
the  Empire  but  all  their  variegated  creeds,  and  cus- 
toms, and  beliefs.  Christianity  was  markedly  com- 
posite before  312,  but  became  very  much  more  so  in 
the  course  of  the  following  century.  In  fact  what 
happened  for  the  mass  of  the  Italian  people  was 
merely  the  placing  of  an  imperial  label  marked  Christ- 
ianity on  all  that  they  had  known  previously  under 
a  variety  of  other  names.  Let  us  view  the  process, 
generalizing,  within  the  bounds  of  a  century  or  so 
from  the  year  312,  the  actual  facts  that  attended  the 
Christianizing  of  Italy  and  western  Europe. 


140         THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

What  are  the  outward  and  visible  signs  of  a  relig- 
ion? Its  temples  and  its  ceremonies.  At  the  begin- 
ning of  the  fourth  century  Italy  was  endowed  with  a 
multitude  of  temples  and  with  a  multitude  of  cere- 
monies, dedicated  to  the  myriad  deities  of  paganism. 
Architecture,  music  and  art,  pageantry,  mysticism 
and  superstition,  all  the  emotions  from  riotous  joy 
to  private  grief  or  public  gloom,  found  in  them  a  su- 
preme and  time-honoured  expression.  Alone  Christ- 
ianity had  lived  a  life  apart,  taken  no  share  in  these 
things.  Its  temples  had  often  been  secret,  and  always 
humble;  its  rites  had  been  austere;  its  interests  had 
been  distinct  from  those  of  the  community  and  occa- 
sionally hostile  to  them;  as  yet  it  had  acquired  neither 
popular  elements  nor  national  qualities.  Yet  now,  in 
the  space  of  a  few  years,  the  Emperor  had  decreed 
that  Christianity  should  supplant  paganism.  How 
could  such  a  thing  be  done.^^ 

In  the  external  sense  it  was  not  done;  for  in  reality 
paganism  absorbed  Christianity.  In  the  inward  or 
ethical  sense,  the  case  was  different.  To  understand 
what  happened  in  the  external  sense,  let  the  reader 
first  take  a  typical  example  of  which  the  facts  are  in 
good  part  known,  though  partly  inferential.^  At  Na- 
ples the  chief  cult  was  that  of  Apollo,  or  the  sun.  His 
temple  was  the  most  splendid  of  the  city,  or  perhaps 
shared  that  distinction  with  the  temple  of  Neptune 
near  by.  Both  these  shrines  were  eventually  to  be 

^  A  good  part  of  the  material  of  this  and  the  few  following  para- 
graphs has  already  been  used  in  the  author's  Napoleonic  Empire 
in  Southern  Italy,  vol.  i,  chap.  i. 


THE  CONVERSION  OF  CONSTANTINE      141 

included  within  the  walls  of  the  cathedral  of  S.  Gen- 
naro  as  it  now  stands  after  the  building  and  modifi- 
cations of  many  centuries.  In  the  year  305,  Gen- 
naro,  bishop  of  the  Christian  community  at  Naples, 
was  decapitated  by  the  orders  of  Diocletian,  then 
persecuting  the  Christians.  A  few  years  later,  after 
the  edict  of  Constantine,  Gennaro's  successor,  Severus, 
caused  the  body  of  the  martyr  to  be  exhumed  and 
brought  to  the  temple  of  Apollo,  which  we  may  there- 
fore assume  had  now  become  a  place  of  Christian  wor- 
ship, —  in  fact  the  present  chapel  of  Santa  Restituta, 
an  annex  of  the  cathedral,  in  the  fabric  of  which  the 
columns  and  masonry  of  the  older  temple  are  to  this 
day  plainly  visible.  A  legend  soon  grew  about  Gen- 
naro,  who  was  credited  with  the  usual  miracles  of  rais- 
ing the  dead,  healing  the  sick,  and  so  on;  and  before 
many  years  had  passed  he  displaced  Apollo  in  whose 
sanctuary  he  had  found  rest,  while  Naples  was  com- 
pensated for  the  loss  of  a  tutelary  god  by  the  acqui- 
sition of  a  patron  saint.  But  in  the  ritual  of  Apollo 
divination  played  a  conspicuous  part;  and  we  have 
from  Horace  the  description  of  a  rite  of  this  sort,  in 
this  very  same  part  of  Italy.  The  priest  placed  on 
the  altar  a  vessel  containing  a  red  coagulated  sub- 
stance, probably  frankincense,  and  the  oracular  re- 
sult turned  on  the  facility  or  otherwise  with  which  it 
liquefied.  The  scepticism  of  Horace  on  the  subject 
was  tersely  expressed:  Cr eclat  JudoBus  Apella!  In  the 
cult  of  Gennaro  a  similar  rite  has  been  performed  at 
the  high  altar  of  the  cathedral  of  Naples  from  time 
immemorial  to  the  present  day.  And  what  the  sacred 


142        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

vessel  is  declared  to  contain  is  the  coagulated  blood 
of  the  Saint,  who  divines  the  better  or  worse  fortune 
of  his  city  by  allowing  it  to  liquefy  with  greater  or  less 
rapidity. 

Such  is  a  peculiarly  clear  case  that  exemplifies  what 
was  going  on  throughout  the  whole  Roman  world. 
The  central  mystery  and  the  central  rite  of  Christ- 
ianity could  be  accepted,  provided  that  alongside 
of  it  the  old  mysteries,  the  old  rites,  might  be  retained 
under  a  transparent  disguise.  And  the  persecutions, 
particularly  the  later  ones,  those  of  'Decius  and  of 
Diocletian,  had  supplied  the  very  material  that  was 
required  for  cloaking  the  pagan  deities  with  a  decent 
Christian  veil.  The^lda  Sandorumoi  the  zealous Bol- 
landists  enumerates  over  twenty  thousand  Christian 
saints,  and  although  Gregory  XIII  restrained  official 
sanction  to  no  more  than  twenty-seven  hundred,  yet 
even  in  that  reduced  number  there  was  ample  oppor- 
tunity for  replacing  the  ancient  gods.  The  imagin- 
ation of  the  Christian  writers  fastened  on  this  good 
work  with  such  enthusiasm  that  in  one  extreme  in- 
stance they  did  not  hesitate  to  attribute  the  life  and 
miracles  of  Buddha  to  one  of  their  martyrs  who,  as 
St.  Josaphat,  had  the  27th  of  November  apportioned 
to  his  honour  and  his  rites. 

The  pagan  sacrifices  continued  for  many  years,  not- 
withstanding the  edicts  of  Constantine  and  the  pro- 
test of  such  Christian  fathers  as  Augustine;  but  the  al- 
tars at  which  they  were  offered  were  now  dedicated  to 
the  Christian  saints.  The  pagan  liturgies  were  largely 
taken  over.   Only  a  few  years  ago  Dominican  monks 


THE  CONVERSION  OF  CONSTANTINE      143 

were  still  addressing  the  Virgin  Mary  as:  "Queen  of 
Heaven,  Queen  of  Earth,  and  Queen  of  Hell,"  just  as 
their  predecessors  invoked  Diana:  'Hergeminamque 
Hecate,  tria  Virginis  ora  Diance:'  ^  As  late  as  the 
fifth  century  many  professing  Christians  prayed  to 
the  rising  sun,  as  devout  Mahommedans  do  now: 
*'0  Lord,  have  mercy  on  us!"  And  a  Pope  even,  In- 
nocent I,  a  hundred  years  after  the  cross  had  been 
planted  in  Rome,  sanctioned  pagan  incantations  in 
the  streets  of  the  city  to  preserve  it  from  the  attack 
of  Alaric  and  the  Goths. 

A  few  more  details  of  the  same  general  character 
may  help  to  make  the  whole  process  clearer.  The 
date  of  the  birth  of  Christ,  hitherto  honoured  by  the 
Church  in  the  spring,  was  transferred  to  the  festi- 
val day  of  the  sun,  the  25th  of  December.    The 
other  great  festivals  of  the  pagan  world  were  touched 
up   with   Christian   interpretation   and   symbolism. 
The  Vestal  Virgins  succumbed,  but  the  Christian 
virgins  continued  their  distinctive  dress;  ^  while  in 
Egypt  the  great  monasteries  of  Serapis  became  the 
starting-point  of  Christian  monasticism.  Cybele  made 
way  for  Mary,  and  her  begging  priests  rapidly  spread 
a  custom,  developed  by  the  misfortunes  of  the  age 
into  the  national  vice  of  Christian  Italy.   The  splen- 
did cult  of  Isis,  with  its  fashionable  appeal,  its  scien- 
tific music,  its  incense,  and  its  symbolism,  easily  re- 
tained, under  a  new  name,  the  old  fascination  that 
high  churchism  still  continues  at  the  present  day.  For, 

1  Rolfe,  Naples  in  1888,  p.  120. 

2  Lanciani,  Athenooum,  1902,  p.  305. 


144        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

to  call  Isis  Mary  in  the  fourth  century  was  scarcely 
more  diflScult  than  to  call  her  the  *' Mother  of  the 
Gods,  Cecropian  Minerva,  Paphian  Venus,  Dyctin- 
nian  Diana  "  in  the  second. 

Nor  must  it  be  supposed  that  this  transformation 
was  disapproved  by  the  leaders  of  the  Christian 
Church;  they  were  too  deeply  engrossed  in  homoou- 
sianism,  too  profoundly  satisfied  at  their  worldly 
good  fortune,  to  resist  the  rising  tide  of  relabelled 
paganism  that  threatened  to  engulf  them.  It  was  but 
a  very  small  leaven,  though  an  important  one  as  we 
shall  presently  see,  that  remained  staunch  to  the  ear- 
lier and  simpler  ideal.  The  rank  and  file  of  the  Christ- 
ian bishops  and  fathers  lent  their  aid  to  the  process, 
and  devoted  their  efforts  to  this  naive  coating  of  pa- 
ganism with  an  external  veneer  of  Christianity.  The 
process  continued  for  many  centuries,  and  from  the 
literature  of  the  Middle  Ages  we  can  take  an  example 
of  precisely  what  was  happening  in  the  fourth  century. 
In  this  the  Christian  writer  reproduces  an  ancient 
tale,  and  to  it  more  piously  than  dextrously,  tags  on 
a  modern  moral: 

**In  the  middle  of  Rome  there  was  formerly  an  im- 
mense chasm  which  no  human  efforts  could  fill  up. 
The  gods,  being  consulted  as  to  this  extraordinary 
circumstance,  replied  that  unless  a  man  came  forward 
willing  to  plunge  into  the  gulf,  it  would  forever  re- 
main open.  Proclamations  were  issued  calling  for  a 
man  willing  to  sacrifice  himself  for  the  good  of  his 
country,  —  but  not  a  man  ventured  to  declare  him- 
self. At  length  Marcus  Aurelius  said : '  If  you  will  per- 


THE  CONVERSION  OF  CONSTANTINE      145 

mit  me  to  live  as  I  please  during  one  whole  year  I  will 
at  the  end  of  it  cheerfully  throw  myself  into  the 
chasm.'  The  Romans  joyfully  agreed,  and,  for  that 
year,  Aurelius  indulged  every  wish  of  his  heart.  Then, 
mounting  a  noble  steed,  he  rode  furiously  into  the 
abyss,  which  immediately  closed  over  him. 

Application 

"Beloved,  Rome  is  the  world,  in  the  centre  of 
which,  before  the  nativity  of  Christ,  was  the  gulf  of 
Hell  yawning  for  our  immortal  souls.  Christ  plunged 
into  it,  and  by  so  doing  redeemed  the  human  race."^ 

Among  the  actual  witnesses  of  the  great  transfor- 
mation, St.  Augustine  (354-430)  is  the  one  whose 
writings  afford  the  greatest  mass  of  evidence  as  to  its 
nature.  His  efforts  to  maintain  the  earlier  purity  of 
Christianity  are  recorded  in  the  De  Civitate  Dei,  and 
one  of  his  arguments,  in  a  much  abbreviated  form, 
may  serve  to  close  this  part  of  the  subject.  "Let 
Jupiter,"  he  says,  "be  one  while  the  soul  of  this  ter- 
rene world,  and  another  while  but  a  quarter  ruler 
with  his  brethren  and  sisters :  let  him  be  the  sky  now, 
embracing  Juno  which  is  the  air  under  him.  Let  him 
be  Jupiter  in  the  sky,  Juno  in  the  air,  Neptune  in  the 
sea's  depth,  Sol,  Luna,  and  the  stars  in  the  spheres, 
Apollo  in  divination,  in  time  Saturn,  in  war  Mars, 
in  the  corn  Ceres,  in  the  woods  Diana.  Let  him  be 
Vaticanus  that  opens  the  child's  mouth,  and  Levana 
that  takes  up  from  the  mother.  Well,  on,  let  him  be 

^  Gesta  Romanorurriy  Lib.  int.  lit.  in,  1105. 


146        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

Jugatine,  to  look  to  the  hills,  and  at  the  loosing  of  a 
virgin's  nuptial  girdle  let  him  be  invoked  by  the  name 
of  Virginiensis :  let  him  be  Mutunus,  which  amongst 
the  Greeks  was  Priapus,  but  that,  it  may  be,  he  will 
be  ashamed  of.  Let  Jupiter  alone  be  all  these,  or,  as 
those  hold  which  make  him  the  soul  of  the  world,  let 
all  these  be  but  as  parts  and  virtues  of  him.  If  it  be 
so,  what  should  they  lose  if  they  took  a  shorter  course 
and  adore  but  one  God?"  ^  And  the  further  trend  of 
the  argument  is  clear  enough. 

And  so  Christianity  wrought  the  fall  of  paganism. 
Decay  and  death  were  drawing  the  old  order,  like  all 
that  is  on  earth,  down  into  their  dark  abode.  The 
fair  form,  the  lovely  pageant  that  had  entwined  the 
Mediterranean  with  sculptured  marble,  and  garlands 
of  roses,  and  human  emotion,  was  fading  into  stuff  for 
the  fantasies  of  dreamers.  The  white-robed  priest  and 
smoking  altar,  the  riotous  procession  and  mystic  rit- 
ual, would  no  longer  chain  the  affections  of  mankind. 
No  longer  would  the  shepherd  blow  his  rude  tibia  in 
honour  of  Cybele,  no  longer  would  a  thousand  deli- 
cious fables,  fine- wrought  webs  of  poetic  imagination, 
haunt  the  sacred  groves  and  colonnades  of  the  gods. 
Day  after  day,  night  after  night,  for  countless  cen- 
turies, as  constantly  as  Apollo  and  Diana  ran  their 
course  in  heaven,  had  all  these  things  run  their 
course  on  earth;  now,  under  the  spell  of  the  man  of 
Galilee,  they  had  shivered  into  a  rainbow  vapour,  a 

1  Augustine,  City  of  God,  Book  iv,  chap,  ii,  Keeley's  transla- 
tion. 


THE  CONVERSION  OF  CONSTANTINE      147 

mist  of  times  past,  unreal,  unthinkable,  save  where 
the  historian  may  reconstruct  a  few  ruins  or  the  poet 
relive  past  lives. 

And  yet  the  externals  in  great  part  remained. 
For  it  was  at  the  heart  that  paganism  was  struck, 
and  it  was  there  it  was  weakest.  It  had  attempted, 
but  had  failed,  to  acquire  a  conscience,  while  the 
new  faith  had  founded  itself  on  that  strong  rock. 
Christianity  had  triumphed  through  the  revolt  of 
the  individual  conscience;  it  was  now  to  attempt  the 
dangerous  task  of  creating  a  collective  one. 


CHAPTER   IX 

THE  LAST  ROMAN   EMPERORS 

The  reign  of  Constantine  was  marked  by  two  great 
events,  of  which  one  has  so  far  not  been  noticed;  this 
was  the  foundation  of  Constantinople  as  a  new  capi- 
tal for  the  Empire.  The  selection  of  this  site  arose 
from  certain  deep-set  and  irresistible  tendencies.  The 
position  of  the  city  of  Rome  was  excellent  so  long  as 
she  was  conquering  or  triumphant,  but  the  instant  the 
tide  began  to  ebb  and  the  question  of  defence,  of  re- 
sistance, became  uppermost,  it  was  weak;  on  the  other 
hand,  that  of  Constantinople  was  admirable  in  every 
w^ay.  Again,  in  the  growing  feebleness  of  the  huge 
empire  the  tendency  to  disintegrate  had  become  more 
and  more  marked,  and  the  foundation  of  a  new  capital 
could  only  result,  as  it  eventually  did,  in  splitting  the 
Empire  into  two  halves,  one  Latin,  the  other  Greek. 

Constantinople  soon  reacted  on  Rome.  The  crea- 
tion of  a  new  capital  immediately  displaced  the  older 
city  from  the  proud  position  of  mistress  of  the  Medi- 
terranean world  which  she  had  held  undisputed  for 
five  hundred  years.  At  the  death  of  Constantine,  the 
Empire  was  divided,  a  repetition  of  what  had  so  often 
happened  before,  but  with  this  difference  that  now 
it  fell  apart  into  two  natural  halves,  Latin  and  Greek. 

At  this  very  moment  the  bishops  of  Rome  were 
fast  attaining  a  prominence  they  were  to  retain  down 


THE  LAST  ROMAN  EMPERORS  149 

to  our  own  times.  The  absence  of  the  Emperor  from 
the  old  capital,  which  after  the  beginning  of  the  next 
century  became  habitual  and  before  its  close  perma- 
nent, tended  to  increase  the  dignity  and  authority 
of  its  bishop.  Within  little  more  than  half  a  century, 
he  assumed  the  title  of  Pontifex  Maximus,  left  dere- 
lict by  Emperors  who  proved  unable  to  exercise 
the  actual  headship  of  the  Church.  The  function  of 
Pontifex  Maximus  meant  the  power  of  appointing 
priests  and  the  general  administration  of  a  religion 
of  which  the  Emperor  was  the  divine  head.  But 
although  the  idea  of  the  divinity  of  the  Emperor 
was  incompatible  with  the  new  system,  religious 
supremacy  had  at  first  passed  ipso  facto  to  the  Em- 
peror in  his  role  of  Pontifex  Maximus,  and,  when  he 
ceased  from  playing  it,  to  the  bishop  who  took  the 
title  over.  Nor  had  there  been  any  apparent  re- 
luctance on  the  part  of  the  Christians  to  accept  this 
curious  solution  of  the  three-hundred-year  struggle, 
for  the  exalted  position  of  the  Emperor  had  con- 
stantly received  from  them  full  recognition.  If  Hor- 
ace wrote  that  Augustus  must  rule  the  world  second 
only  to  Jupiter,  the  Christian  father  Tertullian,  two 
centuries  later,  declared  that  the  Emperor  "is  a 
man,  but  a  man  who  comes  immediately  next  to 
God."  The  acquisition,  therefore,  under  a  venerable 
title,  with  countless  centuries  of  traditions,  of  all  that 
was  left  of  the  religious  supremacy  of  the  Emperors, 
was  of  the  utmost  significance  in  the  rapid  rise  to 
power  of  the  Roman  bishops. 

There  was  much  else  that  told  in  the  same  direc- 


150        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

tion.  Even  before  the  events  of  the  fourth  century  the 
mere  fact  that  Rome  was  capital  had  naturally  enough 
increased  its  bishop's  importance.  The  sun  worship- 
per Aurelian,  when  faced  by  a  problem  of  adminis- 
tration involving  his  Christian  subjects,  —  the  case 
of  Paul  of  Samosata,  —  referred  the  matter  to  the 
judgment  of  the  bishop  of  Rome.  And  with  Con- 
stantine  on  the  throne,  although  the  extreme  claims 
made  by  the  Roman  Church  in  this  matter  cannot 
be  substantiated,  it  is  clear  that  the  tendency  of  the 
councils  was  to  invest  its  representatives  with  some 
sort  of  natural  leadership.  In  the  fifth  century  it 
became  usual  to  give  exclusively  to  that  bishop  the 
title  of  Pappas  or  Father,  hitherto  given  to  all  bish- 
ops; and  this  title  of  Pappas  or  Pope,  which  became 
thoroughly  established  at  the  time  of  Gregory  I,  may 
now,  for  convenience,  be  applied  to  the  bishops  of 
earlier  times. 

The  pontificate  of  Sylvester  was  almost  equal  to 
the  long  reign  of  Constantine,  lasting  until  the  year 
337.  After  his  death  the  Papacy  quickly  showed  the 
ill  effects  of  the  too  rapid  transition  that  had  taken 
place.  The  sacred  oflSce  was  no  longer  the  presi- 
dency of  a  select,  at  times  illegal,  association,  but  one 
of  the  chief  magistracies  of  the  Empire;  and  it  de- 
pended on  popular  election.  The  papal  office  soon 
became  an  object  of  political  intrigue  and  of  mob  vio- 
lence; before  the  end  of  the  century  disgraceful  fac- 
tion fights  took  place  in  the  streets  of  Rome,  and  men 
of  worse  than  equivocal  standing  were  proclaimed 
as  the  successors  of  St.  Peter. 


THE  LAST  ROMAN  EMPERORS  151 

Nor  was  this  the  only  setback  suffered  by  Christ- 
ianity, for  just  at  this  time  a  new  wave  of  Oriental 
religionism  was  coursing  westward  through  the  Ro- 
man w^orld  and  seriously  threatening  its  new-gained 
supremacy.  Mani,  who  gave  his  name  to  Manichse- 
anism,  was  a  Persian  prophet,  born  about  the  be- 
ginning of  the  third  century,  whose  teaching  was  a 
blend  of  the  beliefs  of  Persia,  Judaea,  and  Asia  Minor. 
It  laid  great  stress  on  the  struggle  of  the  principles 
of  good  and  evil;  it  developed  demonology  to  an 
extreme  point;  and  it  accepted  Jesus  as  a  prophet. 
Mani's  personal  history  was  very  similar  to  that  of 
Jesus;  he  suffered  constant  persecution,  and  was 
finally  crucified  in  276.  His  doctrine  spread  rapidly 
through  the  Roman  world,  where  many  unorthodox 
branches  of  Christianity  gave  it  recruits,  and  in  the 
process  clothed  it  in  the  outward  garb  of  that  relig- 
ion. It  was  destined  to  linger  on  obscurely  for  many 
centuries  and  even  to  survive  into  the  Middle  Ages. 
Its  temporary  and  short-lived  success  in  the  fourth 
and  fifth  centuries  is  ascribed  by  Harnack  to  the  fact 
that  alongside  of  its  clean-cut  dualistic  theory  of  good 
and  evil  it  professed  simple  spiritual  worship  and 
strict  morality.  If  this  view  be  correct,^  then  one  may 
venture  to  say  that  some  part  of  the  attraction  towards 
Manichceanism  was  due  to  a  reaction  of  the  older  and 
more  ethical  part  of  the  Christian  sect  away  from  the 
paganism  that  threatened  to  overwhelm  it  as  a  result 
of  the  revolution  of  Constantino. 

Manichseanism  was  not  the  only  enemy;  pagan- 
^  But  see  Cumont's  commentary  on  Theodore  bar  Khoni. 


152        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

ism,  though  struck  down,  was  not  yet  dead.  The 
edicts  aimed  against  it  could  not  be  entirely  effective 
at  first.  Even  if  the  populace  could  be  brought  over 
by  large  concessions  in  external  matters,  the  intel- 
lectual minority,  massed  about  the  strong  nucleus  of 
Neoplatonist  philosophy,  offered  a  stubborn  resist- 
ance. For  one  moment  the  pendulum  even  swung 
back  in  its  favour,  on  the  accession  of  the  philoso- 
pher Julian  to  the  throne  in  361.  But  he  reigned  only 
two  years,  and  his  successor  immediately  restored 
the  exclusive  privilege  of  Christianity,  which  was 
never  again  directly  challenged. 

It  is  true  to  say  that,  during  this  transitional  epoch, 
the  effort  of  Christianity  was  directed  less  against  the 
religious  side  of  the  old  order  than  the  intellectual. 
On  the  religious  side  the  edict  of  an  emperor  and 
a  little  vigorous  police  action  might  readily  enough 
secure  compliance  with  the  new  formulas  and  the 
abandonment  of  the  old;  but  in  the  intellectual  field  it 
was  not  so.  To  uproot  the  study  of  Plato  and  Ho- 
mer, of  Aristotle  and  Zeno,  of  Philo  and  Plotinus,  was 
a  formidable  task;  to  drive  iEschylus  and  Euripides, 
Sophocles  and  Menander  from  the  stage,  was  as  diffi- 
cult. And  yet  unless  this  could  be  accomplished  the 
soul  of  paganism  would  remain.  Therefore  the  new 
faith  put  forth  its  mightiest  effort  to  accomplish  these 
ends,  and  its  success  may  conveniently  be  placed  at 
two  dates  that  come  just  before  and  just  after  the 
year  400.  The  earlier  marks  the  enforced  suppression 
of  the  ancient  drama  as  irreligious,  and  the  substitu- 
tion for  it  of  Christian  plays,  like  the  Moses  in  Egypt 


THE  LAST  ROMAN  EMPERORS  153 

or  Sacrifice  of  Abraham  of  Gregory  Nazianzen,  that 
were  long  to  monopolize  the  stage.  The  latter  marks 
the  brutal  murder  of  the  mathematician  and  meta- 
physician Hypatia  at  the  hands  of  a  Christian  mob; 
she  was  the  last  of  the  pagan  philosophers  of  Alexan- 
dria. Thus  did  Christianity  turn  and  rend  her  Greek 
mother. 

The  relations  of  Christianity  to  Greece  may  be 
briefly  summarized.  The  intellectualism  and  lan- 
guage of  Greece,  in  their  rise,  splendour,  and  decline, 
must  be  thought  of  as  covering  about  a  thousand 
years,  from  Homer  to  the  Nicene  fathers.  In  the  de- 
cadence of  its  philosophy  it  had  given  to  the  world 
through  Zeno  one  of  the  great  factors  in  the  revolt 
of  conscience,  stoicism.  Through  its  political,  econo- 
mic, and  artistic  triumph  over  the  Orient  with  Alex- 
ander, it  had  become  the  medium  for  transfusing 
Eastern  ideas  into  the  Mediterranean  world.  And 
the  hellenizing  of  Jewish  thought,  largely  in  Egypt, 
was  the  central  incident  in  that  process.  It  was  in 
part  owing  to  a  revitalizing  by  the  Jews  that  Greek 
thought  had  struggled  on  for  a  few  more  centuries 
in  Alexandria,  and  had  thrown  off  Gnosticism  and 
Neoplatonism  as  its  expiring  efforts. 

Of  all  this  great  heritage  of  a  thousand  years  it  may 
almost  be  said  that  Christianity  took  what  was  worst 
and  rejected  what  was  best.  The  superstition  and  the 
myths  of  paganism  were  transferred  to  the  rites  and  the 
legends  of  the  saints;  but  the  philosophy  of  the  great 
age  of  Greece,  and  its  literature  of  high  imagination 
were  trampled  under  foot,  while  the  new  formulary 


154        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  , CHURCH 

of  beliefs  was  shaped  in  the  mould  of  the  decadent 
speculations  of  Alexandria.  Worse  than  that,  the  suc- 
cess of  Christianity  coinciding  with  the  moment  when 
Constantine  broke  the  Empire  in  two,  Christianity  in 
the  west  quickly  became  a  Latin  church.  Greece  was 
cast  off,  very  much  as  Judsea  had  been  after  the  fall 
of  Jerusalem,  to  reappear,  however,  in  a  novel  and 
highly  dynamic  form  just  one  thousand  years  later. 

So  far  we  have  looked  on  the  dark  side  of  the  pic- 
ture; but  there  is  another,  and  we  must  now  see  how 
in  the  realm  of  conscience  a  real  revolution  had  been 
accomplished.  If  the  Church  had  been  weak  in  the 
flesh,  in  the  spirit  it  was  not  found  altogether  wanting. 

The  work  of  Christianity  in  establishing  an  ethical 
standard  may  fairly  be  viewed  in  two  phases.  One  of 
these  was  the  push  of  individuals  towards  an  ethical 
life  which  was  one  of  the  great  creative  factors  of 
Christianity;  the  other  was  the  effort  of  the  Church 
itself  to  reduce  this  force  to  a  system.  The  first  of 
these  two  phases  can  only  be  indicated,  for  it  is  of  a 
nature  that  defies  historical  description,  —  let  those 
who  would  understand  what  the  struggle  for  morality 
was  turn  to  the  pages  of  St.  Paul,  or  to  those  of  the 
salacious  historian  of  the  Decline  and  Fall  or  bet- 
ter still  to  the  Confessions  of  St.  Augustine.  Here 
all  that  need  be  said  is  this.  The  pagan  world  as  a 
whole  was  flagrantly  epicurean.  Slavery  spelt  de- 
moralization. "Drink,  eat,  revel,  and  then  join  us!" 
says  a  Roman  funeral  inscription.  Laws,  religion, 
custom,  gave  little  or  no  encouragemeBt  to  virtue; 


THE  LAST  ROMAN  EMPERORS  155 

and  the  result  was  that  the  populations  of  Rome  and 
the  cities  of  the  Empire  were  in  large  part  vicious, 
and  openly  vicious.  But  now  Christianity  was  su- 
preme, and  demanded  right  conduct.  The  result  was 
a  terrible  struggle  of  which  the  echoes  still  reverber- 
ate in  the  works  of  the  fathers  of  the  Church;  and  it 
cannot  be  said  that  the  new  morality  had  an  easy 
or  complete  triumph.  Yet  even  if  it  proved  impos- 
sible to  change  the  customs  of  centuries  completely, 
and  even  if  the  partial  success  was  accomplished  at 
a  cost  that  was  to  prove  injurious  later,  yet  a  real 
change  was  effected.  All  the  elements  that  made 
for  right  living  were  caught  up  in  the  new  creed, 
were  stimulated,  were  developed,  and  society  was 
endowed  with  a  nucleus  of  virtuous  men  living 
under  a  code  universally  accepted  if  not  universally 
observed. 

And  it  was  not  very  long,  less  than  a  century,  be- 
fore this  new  and  great  thing  was  officially  and  dra- 
matically proclaimed  by  the  Church  as  the  fundamen- 
tal fact  of  the  new  era,  as  the  rock  on  which  the 
Church,  and  therefore  all  human  society,  reposed. 
In  the  year  390  Theodosius  was  Emperor,  a  pagan 
originally,  a  Spaniard,  vigorous  but  ruthless  in  admin- 
istration. In  a  cause  far  from  justified  he  asserted 
the  imperial  authority  in  Thessalonica  by  ordering 
several  thousands  of  its  inhabitants  to  be  butchered. 
Some  weeks  later  he  was,  in  residence  at  Milan,  then 
almost  the  rival  of  Rome  for  size  and  opulence,  and 
proceeded  to  the  church  to  partake  of  communion. 
In  the  doorway  he  was  met  by  the  bishop,  Ambrose, 


156        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

who  courageously  stood  with  uplifted  hand,  supported 
by  his  clergy  and  acolytes,  to  bar  the  Emperor's 
path.  The  citizens  of  Milan,  who  had  crowded  to  see 
the  imperial  procession  pass,  then  witnessed  one  of 
the  greatest  scenes  of  history,  though  probably  few 
realized  it.  The  successor  of  Csesar  and  Augustus,  of 
Aurelian  and  Diocletian,  did  not  venture  within 
the  sacred  precinct,  but  stood  at  the  door  and  ac- 
cepted the  supremacy  of  the  moral  law.  He  had 
sinned  against  God  and  man,  and  he  could  not  enter 
into  communion  with  the  Church  unless  he  fulfilled 
the  penance  that  Ambrose  would  lay  on  him;  7m- 
perator  enim  intra  Ecclesiam  rion  supra  Ecclesiam  est.  ^ 
And  so  the  Emperors,  far  from  being  the  crude  deity 
imagined  by  Caligula,  or  the  mystical  Oriental  ema- 
nation of  the  sun  figured  by  Domitian,  or  even  the 
administrative  presiding  oflScer  of  religion  that  Con- 
stantine  had  been,  were  men  once  more,  liable  to  sin, 
liable  to  judgment,  arraignable  before  a  supreme  tri- 
bunal, of  which  the  bishops  of  the  Church  were  the 
representatives.  Here  was  a  fact  before  which  all 
that  took  place  in  that  extraordinary  epoch  of  moral 
and  of  political  cataclysms  seems  to  fade  into  in- 
significance; and  yet  those  cataclysms  were  of  great 
violence,  and  involved  nothing  less  than  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  old  Empire  and  the  laying  of  the  founda- 
tions of  the  new  Europe. 

It  has  already  been  mentioned  that  as  years  went 
by  the  Empire  had  found  it  increasingly  difiicult  to 
^  For  the  Emperor  is  within,  and  not  above,  the  Church. 


THE  LAST  ROMAN  EMPERORS  157 

keep  intact  its  long  line  of  frontiers.  Beyond  the 
Rhine  and  the  Danube  great  fermentations  of  Teu- 
tomc  and  Slavic  tribes  proceeded.  Those  nearest  the 
Empire  had  gradually  been  used  to  build  up  the  le- 
gions. But  the  legions  made  the  Emperors,  and  as 
the  fourth  century  drew  to  a  close  only  a  step  was 
needed  to  seat  the  chief  of  a  Teutonic  tribe  on  the 
imperial  throne.  In  the  territorial  sense,  too,  the  pro- 
cess had  been  more  gradual  than  certain  dates  over- 
emphasized by  history  would  at  first  lead  one  to  sup- 
pose   For  a  long  period  past  tribes  like  that  of  the 
J^  ranks  had  been  allowed  to  settle  within  the  bound- 
aries of  the  Empire,  and  essentially  what  one  has  to 
keep  in  mmd  is  a  twofold  displacement.  Territorially 
the   Germans  are  gradually  pushing  towards   the 
southwest  both  within  and  without  the  imperial  fron- 
tier; socially,  the  Romans  have  relinquished  the  war- 
like virtues  to  the  Germans. 

From  the  year  375,  the  situation  grew  rapidly 
acute.  The  Germans,  overpopulous  and  pressed  by 
other  nations  from  the  east,  broke  down  the  tot- 
tering defence  of  Rome;  they  overran  the  Balkan 
peninsula,  France,  Spain,  Africa,  even  Italy;  and,  a 
new  feature  in  the  situation,  they  carried  their  fami- 
lies with  them  with  a  view  to  permanent  settlement. 
In  410  Alaric,  king  of  the  Visigoths,  who  had  held 
some  of  the  highest  offices  in  the  Empire,  occupied 
northern  and  central  Italy  at  the  head  of  a  Gothic 
army;  for  the  third  time  in  three  years  he  carried  his 
arms  to  the  gates  of  Rome,  and  finally  captured  the 
city  by  storm. 


158        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

It  was  not  the  first  time  Rome  had  fallen.  In  the 
course  of  the  civil  wars,  it  had  often  enough  happened 
to  the  city  to  change  masters  through  violence,  as 
when  Constantino  had  ousted  Maxentius.  Incidents 
of  this  sort  had  occurred  several  times  during  the 
fourth  century,  and  in  the  course  of  them  the  city 
had  been  plundered.  Stilicho  had  stripped  the  temple 
of  Jupiter  Capitolinus  of  its  golden  doors,  while  other 
temples,  the  relics  of  paganism,  suffered  in  like  fashion. 

The  capture  of  the  city  by  Alaric,  the  ex-Roman 
official  and  Gothic  chief,  was  similar,  but  with  some 
added  features.  The  sacking  was  more  severe;  Rome 
was  left  ruinous  and  depopulated;  the  slaves,  for 
whom  the  Goths  had  little  use  and  no  market,  mostly 
regained  freedom;  but  the  Church  was  respected. 
For  within  half  a  century  previous  to  this  event  the 
semi-civilized  Goths  had  acquired,  through  Wulfila, 
both  Christianity  and  a  written  language.  They 
united  the  fervour  of  the  new  convert  with  the  naive 
superstition  of  a  primitive  civilization.  And  they, 
like  Theodosius  twenty  years  earlier,  bowed  the 
head  and  grounded  the  sword  before  the  symbol  of 
the  priest.  That  fact  alone,  in  the  wreck  of  a  mighty 
empire,  appeared  to  stand  solid  amid  the  surges  of 
destruction.  And  the  situation  of  Europe  from  this 
moment  was  founded  on  the  relation  thus  established 
between  the  Teuton  warrior  and  the  Latin  priest. 

In  a  century  or  so,  from  the  crossing  of  the  Danube 
by  the  Goths,  the  Empire  underwent  complete  trans- 
formation. The  break  between  Greek  and  Roman, 
East  and  West,  Constantinople  and  Rome,  became 


THE  LAST  ROMAN  EMPERORS  159 

complete.  The  East  survived  politically,  largely  be- 
cause of  the  favourable  situation  of  Constantinople; 
the  West  succumbed.  Romulus  Augustulus,  the 
last  Emperor,  was  deposed  in  476;  Theodoric  the 
Great  founded  the  Ostrogothic  kingdom  in  493;  and 
with  these  events  it  may  be  said  that  a  new  age 
began,  and  that  our  concern  will  no  longer  be  with 
the  Mediterranean  world,  but  with  Europe.  During 
this  epoch,  that  is  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries,  let 
us  trace  such  aspects  of  the  history  of  the  Church  as 
have  not  yet  received  notice. 

The  political  triumph  of  Christianity  coincided 
with  the  moment  of  greatest  doctrinal  conflict.  Ear- 
lier, there  had  been  merely  unorganized  religious 
opinion  with  a  central  line  from  which  many  Christ- 
ians diverged  widely.  After,  there  was  a  tendency 
to  come  to  an  organized  cult,  from  which  it  would 
be  as  criminal  to  dissent  as  in  former  centuries  from 
the  cult  of  the  Emperor.  With  the  immediate  suc- 
cessors of  Constantine  the  conflicts,  especially  of 
Arians  and  Athanasians,  were  violent,  and  a  succes- 
sion of  synods  and  councils  were  "convened  by  the 
Emperor's  order  in  the  hope  of  bringing  every  man 
around  to  his  own  opinion."^  Arianism  was  stamped 
out  in  the  Latin  Empire  by  the  close  of  the  fourth 
century.  But  Wulfila  carried  it  to  the  Goths,  and  it 
prevailed  generally  among  the  Teutonic  tribes,  until 
the  Visigoths  abandoned  it  in  589  at  the  Synod  of 
Toledo,  and  last  of  all  among  the  Lombards,  who 
did  not  accept  the  Nicene  Creed  until  66'^. 

^  Am.  Marcellinus,  xxi,  16,  quot.  by  Hodgkin. 


160        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

Arlanism  was  not  the  only  heresy,  as  we  may  now 
term  any  divergence  from  the  central  belief  of  the 
Church.  The  Donatists,  the  Monophysites,  the  Pela- 
gians, the  Nestorians,  the  Paulicians,  may  serve  to 
represent  many  controversies  connected  with  the  doc- 
trines of  free  will,  predestination,  the  divine  nature  of 
Christ,  the  interrelations  of  the  Trinity,  the  resurrec- 
tion, and  other  matters,  some  of  which  will  later  be 
considered  more  fully.  But  it  may  be  said  that  by 
the  end  of  the  fifth  century  these  controversies  had 
become  less  acute  and  less  widespread,  and  that  there 
was  a  marked  tendency  to  reach  doctrinal  equilibrium. 
This  tendency  was  further  accentuated  in  the  cen- 
turies that  followed;  so  that  we  may  fairly  mark  out 
a  descending  curve  of  theological  dispute  from  the 
accession  of  Constantine  in  312  to  the  period  of  Greg- 
ory, of  the  conquest  of  Spain  by  the  Mohammedans, 
and  of  the  beginnings  of  the  Carolingian  dynasty, 
which  is  as  far  as  we  need  look  for  the  present. 

Let  us  turn  from  dogmatic  controversy  to  a  very 
different  thing,  the  inner  religious  life.  It  has  already 
been  said  that  in  this  matter  the  revolution  of  Con- 
stantine had  far-reaching  effects.  For  the  spiritual 
leaders  of  the  Christians  soon  found  that  the  Church, 
on  its  inflated  and  popular  basis,  was  not  altogether 
suited  to  the  sort  of  ministration  they  had  formerly 
practised.  It  was  almost  a  new  institution.  A  bishop 
of  Milan  or  Rome,  with  the  entire  populations  of 
those  cities  for  his  flock,  had  of  necessity  to  be  an 
administrative  person,  and  a  very  active  one,  in  such 
a  transition  as  was  taking  place ;  while  his  flock  had  not 


THE  LAST  ROMAN  EMPERORS  161 

only  increased  in  numbers  but  decreased  in  quality. 
And  while,  as  in  the  case  of  Ambrose,  the  new  con- 
ditions were  at  times  compatible  with  high  Christian 
ideals,  more  often  the  reverse  was  the  case. 

This  change  in  the  Church  was  hard,  therefore,  on 
Christians  for  whom  the  spiritual  life  still  meant 
everything,  who  cared  more  for  humility  and  salva- 
tion than  for  splendour  and  popular  success.  What 
were  they  to  do?  How  could  spiritual  Christianity 
continue  its  life.^  The  reply  was,  monasticism.  Here 
was  the  natural  continuation  of  that  secluded  life  of 
piety  and  self-abnegation  which  the  early  conditions 
of  the  Church  had  imposed  and  the  new  conditions 
seemed  to  make  impossible.  The  Church  had  sud- 
denly become  identical  with  human  society,  and  "the 
more  deeply  she  became  involved  in  the  world,  in 
politics,  and  in  culture,  the  more  loudly  and  impres- 
sively .  .  .  she  preached  what  monasticism  now  prac- 
tised. .  .  .  The  Church  of  Constantine  drove  into 
solitude  and  the  desert  those  who  wished  to  devote 
themselves  to  religion."  ^ 

Monasticism,  like  all  else  in  this  world,  was  a 
growth,  but  a  growth  vastly  stimulated  by  the  event 
of  312,  and  by  that  of  410.  It  can  be  traced  back  from 
Italy  to  Egypt,  and  from  Christianity  to  paganism. 
But  for  the  present  purpose  it  may  be  considered  to 
have  struck  deep  root  as  a  mode  of  thought  and  of 
life  before  the  end  of  the  fourth  century.  Then  came 
the  great  Teutonic  migrations ;  and,  before  the  German 
fire  and  sword,  the  old  civilization  that  had  learned 
^  Harnack,  Monasticism,  pp.  45,  43. 


162         THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

so  many  secrets  of  life  while  forgetting  the  most  im- 
portant of  all,  —  how  to  defend  it,  —  scattered  in  all 
directions  for  refuge.  Among  marshes  and  lagoons, 
at  Ravenna  and  the  new-formed  Venice,  a  shelter 
might  be  found;  but  safer  even  was  the  Church,  and 
especially  the  cloister.  There,  under  the  protection 
of  the  Latin  cross,  a  symbol  the  barbarians  dare  not 
violate,  what  was  left  of  Roman  intellectualism  could 
cower  while  the  storm  blew  over,  presently  to  reissue 
as  the  army  of  Christ,  to  conquer,  with  new-forged 
weapons,  lands  that  the  legions  of  their  fathers  had 
never  even  beheld.  The  great  movement  towards 
monasticism,  then,  coincides  with  the  Teutonic  in- 
vasions; we  must  await  the  pontificate  of  Gregory 
the  Great,  two  centuries  later,  to  see  the  institution 
fully  developed. 

Meanwhile,  what  of  the  Popes?  Certain  facts  con- 
cerning them  may  be  chronicled  here  in  order  of  date, 
through  which  the  inevitable  developments  can  easily 
be  traced.  Damasus  attained  the  Papacy  in  368, 
after  a  faction  fight  of  great  violence  with  Ursinicus. 
The  churches  of  Rome  were  fortified  by  the  opposing 
parties,  defended  and  stormed,  at  great  cost  in  hu- 
man lives.  The  form  of  election  was  now  well  estab- 
lished; it  was  bound  to  produce  events  like  those  just 
described,  as  it  depended  on  the  candidate's  acclama- 
tion by  the  Senate,  the  clergy,  and  the  people;  —  the 
modern  form  of  presenting  the  newly  elected  Pope 
from  the  balcony  of  St.  Peter's  doubtless  represents 
this  tradition.  Among  other  events  that  belong  to  this 
period  was   the  translation  of   the  Scriptures  into 


THE  LAST  ROMAN  EMPERORS  163 

Latin  by  Jerome,  the  so-called  Vulgate,  one  of  many 
incidents  marking  the  latinization  of  Christianity  and 
the  split  between  East  and  West.  The  Latin  Scrip- 
tures thus  came  six  centuries  after  the  Septuagint. 

Another  of  the  minor  events  to  be  noted  under 
Pope  Damasus  was  the  transfer  from  the  Emperor 
to  the  Pope  of  the  adulatory,  almost  servile,  practice 
of  so  many  generations  whereby  the  individual  cre- 
ated the  Emperor  his  universal  legatee.  Although  this 
practice  was  not  to  prove  of  much  effect  in  the  period 
of  disruption  that  followed  so  soon,  yet  it  was  the 
starting-point  from  which  the  organization  of  the 
Papacy  as  a  financial  machine  and  the  operation  of 
mortmain  took  their  origin. 

Under  Siricius  (384-398)  we  come  to  the  first  De- 
cretal, a  papal  decree  laying  down  the  law  as  to 
certain  doubtful  points  submitted  to  the  bishop  of 
Rome's  judgment.  While  the  force  of  this  was  far 
from  universal,  yet  there  was  a  strong  tendency  al- 
ready to  accept  the  papal  decisions  in  matters  of 
doctrine  and  discipline.  The  chief  subject  on  which 
Siricius  expressed  himself  was  that  of  the  celibacy  of 
the  clergy,  and  this  interesting  matter  deserves  a  few 
words  of  notice. 

The  Christian  tradition  of  celibacy  may  be  traced 
back  in  one  direction  to  the  priests  of  Isis  or  to  the 
customs  of  Asia;  in  another  to  a  strong  prejudice  of 
Paul,  and  to  his  teaching;  and  in  yet  another  to  an 
early  revolt  of  the  Christians  against  the  extreme 
sexual  immorality  of  their  day.  The  whole  question  is 
of  the  most  involved  character.  The  frame  of  mind 


164        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

that  leads  to  celibacy  is  generally  a  state  of  reac- 
tion, and  is  therefore  more  likely  to  occur  in  sensual 
than  in  temperate  natures;  when  found  in  waves 
as  a  mode  for  many,  it  suggests  morbid  conditions, 
closely  allied  to  what  might  be  called  religious  inver- 
sion. That  is  a  feature  of  celibacy  which  the  his- 
tory of  religion  throws  into  constant  relief.  The 
trend  towards  legislation  imposing  celibacy  on  the 
regular  clergy  was  continuous  from  the  time  of 
Paul.  The  Council  of  Nicsea  marks  the  break  be- 
tween the  Greek  and  the  Latin  practice  in  this  matter, 
the  former  rejecting  the  rule.  In  the  West  the  legisla- 
tion of  Siricius  was  an  important  step  towards  celi- 
bacy of  the  clergy,  though  it  took  over  five  hundred 
years  more  to  make  the  law  of  the  Church  really  im- 
perative in  this  respect. 

After  the  sack  of  Rome  by  Alaric  in  410  the  city 
became  absolutely  Christian,  and  its  bishop  was  the 
supreme  ruler.  Innocent  I  perceived  that  in  the 
chaos  of  western  Europe  the  papal  supremacy  might 
conceivably  be  extended  in  its  religious  functions  to 
the  old  bounds  of  the  Empire,  and  he  issued  important 
circular  letters  in  which  he  advanced  the  claim  that  all 
the  bishops  of  the  West  owed  obedience  to  the  bishop 
of  Rome.  In  417  Innocent  was  chosen  to  arbitrate 
the  great  doctrinal  controversy  between  Pelagius 
and  Augustine,  and  on  this  occasion  assumed  such  a 
tone  of  authority  as  had  not  yet  been  heard  from  the 
papal  chair.  His  decision  was  in  favour  of  Augustine, 
as  it  well  might  be;  for  that  father's  eloquent  work 
the  City  of  God,  one  of  the  few  books  that  mark  an 


THE  LAST  ROMAN  EMPERORS  165 

epoch,  had  formulated  for  the  first  time  the  idea  of  a 
great  theocracy  centring  about  Rome  that  should  re- 
place the  old  Empire  by  a  world-conquering  religious 
organization. 

In  417  we  have  one  of  the  last  acts  of  the  dying  Em- 
pire in  regard  to  the  new  religion.  The  Emperor  Ho- 
norius,  from  his  strong  refuge  at  Ravenna,  issued  a 
decree  making  it  punishable  by  death  to  assert  the 
heresies  of  which  Innocent  had  found  Pelagius  guilty; 
a  position  Rome  still  stood  for  more  than  a  thousand 
years  later.  For  the  twenty-five  years  following  there 
is  little  to  chronicle  except  internal  broils,  but  the 
middle  of  the  century  witnessed  the  memorable  pon- 
tificate of  Leo  I,  the  Great  (440-461). 

Under  Leo  the  Papacy  went  through  great  vicissi- 
tudes. The  power  of  the  See  of  Rome  was  extended. 
The  bishops  of  Gaul  appealed  to  its  decisions.  Leo 
declined  to  accept  certain  decrees  of  a  council  of  the 
Church  held  at  Ephesus,  and  the  court  of  Constanti- 
nople supported  him  and  had  these  decrees  reversed 
by  the  Council  of  Chalcedon.  He  further  acted  as  the 
representative  of  that  council,  that  is,  of  the  Church, 
in  deposing  the  bishop  Dioscorus;  but  the  claim 
made  later  that  the  thirty -first  canon  of  the  council 
acknowledged  the  primacy  of  the  See  of  Rome  has 
now  been  demonstrated  to  be  a  forgery. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  full  fury  of  the  German 
devastations  was  felt  during  Leo's  pontificate.  The 
Huns,  pressing  from  the  east,  had  been  largely  instru- 
mental in  driving  the  German  tribes  into  the  Roman 
w^orld;  they  now  made  their  great  incursions,  being 


166        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

expelled  from  Gaul  after  Attila's  defeat  at  Chalons  in 
451,  but  invading  northern  Italy  in  the  following  year. 
Leo  proceeded  to  Attila's  camp,  averted  his  wrath  in 
a  manner^  that  the  chronicles  do  not  fail  to  describe 
as  miraculous,  and  persuaded  him  to  retire  to  the 
valley  of  the  Danube.  With  the  Vandals,  however, 
seven  years  later,  Leo's  powers  proved  less  effica- 
cious. Their  army,  bent  on  plunder,  grossed  over  from 
Africa  to  Italy,  and  inflicted  on  Rome  a  siege  and  a 
sack  even  more  terrible  than  that  of  Alaric  fifty  years 
before. 

Immediately  after  the  extinction  of  the  Western 
Empire  with  Romulus  Augustulus  in  476,  a  long-grow- 
ing rivalry  between  the  sees  of  Rome  and  of  Constan- 
tinople came  to  a  head.  With  political  anarchy  in  the 
West,  the  position  of  the  Pope  was  somewhat  ambig- 
uous. The  Patriarch  of  Constantinople  claimed  that 
as  the  Empire  now  had  but  one  capital  and  one 
emperor,  he  was  entitled  to  take  precedence;  he  as- 
sumed for  his  Church  the  designation  of  *' Mother  of 
all  Christians  and  of  the  Orthodox  Religion."  The 
Popes  protested.  The  rival  bishops  excommunicated 
one  another;  and  a  schism,  forerunner  of  the  per- 
manent one  that  occurred  later,  was  engendered  that 
lasted  about  forty  years.  This  event  may  serve  to 
mark  the  close  of  the  fifth  century;  the  events  of  the 
sixth  belong  to  another  chapter. 


CHAPTER  X 

JUSTINIAN  AND   GREGORY   THE   GREAT 

Two  names  dominate  the  sixth  century,  those  of 
the  Emperor  Justinian  and  of  Pope  Gregory  the 
Great;  both  stand  for  the  same  thing:  social  and  po- 
Htical  organization.  And  that  is  the  aspect  of  the 
history  of  those  times  that  will  be  chiefly  dealt  with 
here,  which,  incidentally,  will  bring  us  to  some  import- 
ant questions  of  law  and  of  political  theory.  Before 
going  into  these  matters,  however,  the  general  lines 
of  political  movement  up  to  the  year  604  had  better 
be  indicated. 

In  France,  Spain,  and  Italy,  great  Teutonic  king- 
doms had  come  into  existence,  —  of  the  Franks,  of 
the  Visigoths,  of  the  Ostrogoths.  None  of  these  gave 
much  promise  of  stability,  though  the  Franks  after 
two  stormy  centuries  were  to  achieve  it.  In  the  year 
500  Clovis  was  king  of  the  Franks,  Theodoric  king 
of  the  Ostrogoths;  and  the  latter  came  near  asserting 
a  general  supremacy  over  all  the  German  kingdoms. 
But  the  Teutons  had  not  as  yet  sunk  their  roots 
deeply.  Among  the  provinces  that  fringed  the  Medi- 
terranean they  were  little  more  than  a  small  military 
caste  lording  it  over  a  comparatively  large  Latin 
population;  and  their  new  kingdoms  were  only  just 
beginning  to  evolve  institutions  adapted  to  the  new 
circumstances.   All  depended  as  yet   on  the  efforts 


168        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

of  a  few  commanding  personalities,  and  whenever 
these  passed  off  the  stage,  the  tendency  was  to  revert 
to  anarchy  and  destruction. 

It  was  precisely  this  that  happened  on  the  death  of 
Theodoric.  The  Ostrogothic  kingdom  rapidly  de- 
veloped symptoms  of  weakness,  and  this  coincided 
with  a  fleeting  recurrence  of  vigour  on  the  part  of 
the  old  Empire.  The  Emperor  Justinian  ascended  the 
throne  of  Constantinople  in  527,  and  soon  entered  on 
the  work  of  reconquering  the  Empire  from  the  Ger- 
mans. This  work  proved  too  vast  for  complete  ac- 
complishment. Yet  in  534  his  general  Belisarius  had 
crushed  the  Vandals  and  recovered  Africa.  He  then 
turned  against  Italy,  and  in  540  defeated  and  cap- 
tured the  Ostrogothic  king,  Vitiges,  whom  he  sent 
to  Constantinople  a  prisoner.  Further  struggles  fol- 
lowed in  which  Justinian  never  quite  succeeded  in 
conquering  all  Italy,  in  which  the  Ostrogoths  perished, 
and  in  which  a  new  tribe,  the  Lombards,  took  firm 
hold  of  northern  Italy,  and  secured  much  of  the 
centre.  At  the  close  of  the  century,  Rome,  Ravenna, 
Naples  and  the  south  owed  obedience  to  the  Em- 
peror of  Constantinople;  while  beyond  the  Alps  the 
Frankish  power  was  consolidating  with  Clotaire  in 
613,  and  the  foundations  were  being  laid  for  a  great 
Frankish  empire. 

That  being  the  general  movement  of  the  century, 
let  us  now  turn  to  those  internal  questions  of  law,  of 
social,  political,  and  ecclesiastical  organization,  which 
so  far  have  been  neglected.  Law  is  one  of  those  ob- 
scure foundations  of  the  social  edifice  that  are  decisive 


JUSTINIAN  AND  GREGORY  THE  GREAT    169 

of  its  solidity;  and  in  this  respect  it  would  hardly  be 
an  exaggeration  to  say  that  the  greatest  work  of 
Rome  was  her  law.  Her  Empire  passed  away  fif- 
teen hundred  years  ago;  her  language  survived  much 
longer,  but  has  now  been  dead  for  some  centuries; 
yet  her  law  remains  in  modified  form  the  present- 
day  basis  of  more  than  one  national  code. 

In  the  history  of  the  Roman  law  let  us  first  note  a 
certain  fact  that  coincides  with  the  time  of  Christ. 
That  was  an  age  of  great  political  transformation  and 
therefore  an  age  of  legal  theorizing.  And  in  the  theo- 
ries of  the  Roman  lawyers,  we  find  the  legal  counter- 
part of  the  ideas  of  Seneca  and  of  Paul,  of  Stoicism 
and  of  Christianity.  The  conquest  of  so  many  na- 
tions had  imposed  on  Rome  the  formulation  of  a  new 
law  alongside  of  that  which  regulated  the  intercourse 
of  her  own  citizens,  a  sort  of  international  law  for  the 
Mediterranean  world.  This  was  the  jus  gentium,  as 
opposed  to  the  jus  civile;  and  behind  the  jus  gentium, 
in  the  speculations  of  the  Roman  lawyers,  there  soon 
appeared  an  even  larger  idea. 

In  the  Roman  mind  religion  was  little  more  than 
the  ceremonial  dress  of  law.  Legal  speculation  on  the 
jus  gentium,  on  the  law  applicable  to  all  the  nations, 
was  closely  akin  to  the  philosophic  speculation  of  the 
Stoics  on  the  relations  of  all  human  beings,  or  the  re- 
ligious speculation  of  the  Christians  who  followed  Paul 
in  believing  that  all  men  were  in  nature  equal.  The 
Roman  jurists  arrived  at  the  conception  of  a  jus  na- 
turale,  a  theoretical  natural  law  and  universal  justice. 
These  developments  of  thought  are  traceable  from 


170        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

the  period  of  Cicero  to  that  of  Justinian.  Alongside, 
interacting,  were  the  poHtical  and  social  changes  of 
the  epoch.  A  conception  of  the  divine  Emperor  as  a 
being  above  and  beyond  the  law  was  borrowed  from 
the  Greeks;  the  laws  of  slavery  were  humanized;  the 
larger  law  of  nations  tended  to  swallow  the  lesser  law 
of  Rome;  and,  fiscal  necessities  aiding,  Roman  citi- 
zenship was  rapidly  extended  until  it  finally  embraced 
all  the  free  inhabitants  of  the  Empire. 

It  was  in  the  matter  of  slavery  that  the  Roman  law 
failed  most  conspicuously  to  reach  a  universal  and 
equal  view.  It  is  true  that  the  most  advanced  thinkers 
found  slavery  difficult  to  accept;  that  some  theorists 
went  so  far  as  to  declare  that  slavery  was  against 
the  law  of  nature;  that  the  power  of  the  master  over 
his  slave  was  reduced.  But  it  needs  many  centuries 
to  destroy  deep-rooted  customs,  and  it  cannot  be 
held  against  the  Church  that  it  took  up  an  attitude 
no  more  pronounced  on  this  subject  than  did  the  fore- 
most pagan  jurists  and  philosophers;  on  the  contrary, 
it  may  be  praised  for  having  been  in  line  with  a  move- 
ment which  gradually  brought  about  a  marked  change. 
In  following  up  this  change,  from  ancient  slavery  to 
mediaeval  serfdom,  political  and  also  economic  factors 
will  have  to  be  considered ;  the  actual  point  of  trans- 
ition was  the  abolition  of  the  traffic  in  slaves,  of  which 
more  will  be  said  later. 

In  terms  of  Christianity  the  idea  that,  according 
to  the  law  of  nature,  the  master  and  the  slave  were 
equal,  was  interpreted  in  the  sense  that  they  were 
equal  before  God.  Slaves  were  therefore  as  capable 


JUSTINIAN  AND  GREGORY  THE  GREAT    171 

of  a  religious  life  as  their  masters;  and  if  they  owed 
their  masters  service  they  were  entitled  to  receive 
justice.  The  act  of  manumission,  Hberating  the  slave, 
was  placed  under  the  auspices  of  the  Church  soon 
after  the  conversion  of  Constantine;  and  later  became 
a  pious  work,  protected,  and  encouraged.  Individual 
members  of  the  lower  clergy,  which  was  largely 
drawn,  as  it  continues  to  be,  from  inferior  social 
strata,  were  occasionally  manumitted  for  the  purpose 
of  ordination,  1  or  often  enough  remained  serfs. 

There  is  another  fundamental  group  of  ideas  in 
addition  to  slavery  that  must  be  examined  before  we 
come  to  the  legal  reforms  of  the  Emperor  Justinian; 
this  is  what  relates  to  the  sovereign  or  state  and  the 
source  of  political  authority.  Without  going  so  far 
as  to  consider  the  idea  of  the  social  contract,  as  de- 
rived from  the  Greek  philosophy,  it  will  be  sufficient 
to  say  that  the  Roman  jurists  connected  the  institu- 
tions of  republican  Rome  with  the  military  despotism 
of  the  Emperors  by  means  of  the  fiction,  expressed  by 
Ulpian,  that  the  Emperor  had  an  absolute  right  to 
legislate  because  the  people  had  conferred  on  him  the 
necessary  power.  And  this  fiction  or  theory  stood  be- 
hmd  Roman  law  until  it  came  into  contact  with  the 
law  of  the  German  tribes,  where  the  idea  that  law 
proceeded  from  the  whole  community  existed  in  a 
vital,  active  form. 

The  attitude  towards  political  authority  of  Jesus, 
of  Paul,  of  the  early  Christian  leaders,  has  already 

1  Atone  time  the  Church  doctrine  was  that  ordination  implied 
manumission. 


172        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

been  indicated.  Writers  on  political  theory  have  been 
accustomed  to  build  up  a  Pauline  doctrine  of  civil 
government  as  a  divine  institution;  but  even  if  such 
a  doctrine  can  be  extracted  from  Paul's  writings,  even 
if  his  successors  accepted  or  elaborated  it,  it  is  evi- 
dent that  it  was  merely  a  doctrine  of  convenience, 
of  evasion.  In  reality  there  was  a  fundamental  incom- 
patibility between  Christianity  and  the  government 
it  had  to  accept,  until  Constantine  merged  the  one 
into  the  other.  It  was  during  this  epoch  and  under 
these  circumstances  that  the  theory  was  developed 
that  government  was  instituted  by  God  because  of 
the  weakness  and  sins  of  human  nature. 

The  second  and  third  centuries  saw  Christians  will- 
ing to  accept  the  doctrine  that  the  pagan  Emperor 
was  the  first  of  men,  second  only  to  God.  So  that 
with  Constantine  the  transition  to  a  conception  of 
the  Emperor  as  a  representative  of  the  deity,  endowed 
in  some  special  way,  after  the  Oriental  manner,  with 
the  grace  of  God,  was  easy.  At  the  close  of  the  fourth 
century  Irenseus  declares  that  "the  Empire  is  not  in 
the  Church,  but  the  Church  in  the  Empire,  and  that 
there  is  no  one  over  the  Emperor  but  God  who  made 
him."^  And  had  the  Emperors  continued  in  their 
office  of  Pontifex  Maximus,  and  in  their  Roman  capi- 
tal, they  and  not  the  Popes  would  have  continued  to 
reap  the  benefit  of  this  doctrine.  As  it  was,  they  aban- 
doned the  position,  and  allowed  the  Church,  by  such 
treatment  as  that  meted  out  by  Ambrose  to  Theo- 
dosius,  to  relegate  them  to  a  position  of  inferiority. 
^  Carlyle,  Medioeval  Political  Theory,  vol.  i,  p.  148. 


JUSTINIAN  AND  GREGORY  THE  GREAT    173 

In  the  fifth  century  the  pseudo-Augustine  declares 
that  the  sovereign  is  the  "Vicar  of  God,"  and  there 
seems  to  be  a  lurking  inference  that  his  acts  may 
not  be  questioned,  or  that  he  is  infallible.  This  doc- 
trine, applied  in  due  course  to  the  Popes,  was  not  to 
become  a  canon  of  the  Church  until  the  nineteenth 
century,  when  the  Council  of  the  Vatican  affirmed  it. 
Gregory  the  Great,  at  the  close  of  the  sixth  century, 
basing  himself  largely  on  Augustine  and  his  own  con- 
temporary Isidore  of  Seville,  laid  down  that  a  good 
ruler  is  a  reward  from  God  for  a  good  people,  but  that 
an  evil  one  is  a  punishment  equally  divine.  The  evil 
ruler  is  appointed  by  God  and  must  not  under  any 
circumstances  be  resisted.  Evil  is  of  the  essence  of 
man's  condition  on  earth. 

The  transitions  of  this  doctrine  are  readily  to  be 
fitted  in  with  the  changing  conditions  of  Christianity. 
When  Constantine  placed  himself  at  the  head  of  the 
Church,  it  was  natural  that  a  strong  tendency  should 
have  arisen  to  exalt  the  sovereign's  position.  With 
the  west  and  Rome  cast  off  from  the  Empire,  and 
her  bishops  rapidly  gaining  consciousness  of  their  op- 
portunity for  power,  it  was  inevitable  that  they  should 
have  continued  strengthening  a  doctrine  which  they 
were  rapidly  converting  to  their  own  advantage.^ 

The  legal  reforms  of  Justinian  were  carried  out  in 
the  first  half  of  the  sixth  century,  and  were  in  the 
main  a  crystallization  of  the  cumbersome  accumula- 

^  The  case  of  Gregory  presents  grave  difficulties  that  this  pas- 
sage does  not  touch;  it  is  only  to  be  taken  in  the  widest  sense,  as 
trying  to  show  tendencies,  nothing  more. 


174        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

tions  of  the  Roman  law  into  a  system.  This  was  set 
out  in  the  Code,  Digest,  Institutes,  and  Novelise,  of 
which  the  Code  opens  with  the  Nicene  Creed,  and 
the  Institutes  with  the  following  words:  ''In  Nomine 
Domini  Nostri  Jesu  Christi:  Imperator  Ccesar  Fla- 
vins Justinianus,  Alemanicus,  Gotthicus,  Francicus, 
Germanicus,  Anticus,  Alanicus,  Vandalicus,  Africanus, 
piuSy  felix,  inclytus,  victor  ac  triumphator,  semper  Au- 
gustus, cupidoB  legum  juventuti.  ..."  This  recogni- 
tion of  religion  by  the  law  amounted  in  one  sense  to  a 
restatement  of  the  relation  that  existed  in  the  early 
days  of  Rome  when  religion  was  identified  with  the 
citizen's  duty  to  the  state.  Under  Justinian  the  same 
exclusivism  ruled,  and  the  Code  condemned  heresy  as 
a  capital  offence,  thus  embodying  one  of  the  funda- 
mental positions  that  Christianity  had  derived  from 
Judaism.  It  further  recognised  the  authority  of 
the  councils  of  the  Church  concerning  matters  of 
dogma,  and  the  primacy  of  the  bishop  of  Rome. 
Church  lands,  as  in  former  times  those  of  the  temples, 
were  held  to  be  sacred,  tax  free,  and  inalienable, 
while  the  right  of  the  Church  to  acquire  property  was 
not  limited;  —  a  position  which  implied  the  indefinite 
extension  of  the  Church  as  a  privileged  landowner. 

The  Code  further  embodied  provisions  that  regu- 
lated the  hierarchy  of  the  Church,  and  in  some  degree 
its  internal  discipline,  by  fixing  the  gradations  of  me- 
tropolitan, bishops,  abbots;  by  prescribing  the  form  of 
ordinations  and  the  constitution  of  monasteries;  by 
pronouncing  the  rules  and  penalties  of  clerical  disci- 
pline and  morality. 


JUSTINIAN  AND  GREGORY  THE  GREAT    175 

In  essence  the  Code  of  Justinian  was,  as  everything 
in  its  antecedents  tended  to  make  it,  a  system  of  law 
adapted  to  the  good  administration  of  a  highly  organ- 
ized despotism.  Behind  it,  and  behind  all  codes  de- 
rived from  it,  lurked  the  essential  idea  that  to  one 
supreme  head  was  delegated,  whether  by  the  people 
or  by  God,  the  right  to  legislate;  while  all  through 
it  ran  the  sanctity  of  hierarchical  adjustments  and  of 
paternal  authority.  "I  suppose,"  wrote  Stubbs  to 
J.  R.  Green,  "that  no  nation  using  the  Civil  Law  has 
ever  made  its  way  to  freedom,  whilst  wherever  it  has 
been  introduced  the  extinction  of  popular  liberty 
has  followed  sooner  or  later." 

Christianity  had  thus  merged  what  might,  but  for 
the  conversion  of  Constantine,  have  been  its  own  code 
of  laws  into  the  Roman  law.  For  the  Canon  law,  that 
is,  the  collection  of  the  canons  of  the  councils,  to- 
gether with,  in  the  West,  the  decretals  of  the  Popes, 
derived  its  force  explicitly  or  implicitly  from  the  sanc- 
tion of  the  imperial  law.  And  among  the  new  ideas 
that  had  found  their  way  into  the  ordinary  routine  of 
the  civil  tribunals  from  the  Christian  practice,  some 
struck  at  the  very  roots  of  the  social  order,  like  those 
concerning  matrimony.  But  the  conquest  of  Justin- 
ian, the  fact  that  his  troops  held  Rome,  planted  the 
Code  firmly  in  western  Europe. 

In  addition  to  what  has  just  been  said,  it  is  neces- 
sary to  point  out  another  line  along  which  the  Church 
was  acquiring  strength.  In  the  difficult  conditions 
arising  from  the  injection  of  the  German  conquerors 
into  the  midst  of  the  unmilitary  population  of  the 


176        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

Empire,  the  clergy  naturally  played  the  part  of 
mediator.  Latin  intellect  balanced  Teutonic  courage, 
and  the  conquered  race  soon  learnt  the  trick  of  domin- 
ating its  conqueror  through  superstition.  Then  arose 
that  tradition  of  jugglery,  mystification,  and  forgery, 
which  was  to  be  the  most  unworthy  characteristic  of 
the  mediaeval  Church.  By  miraculous  deceptions 
played  on  superstitious  fear,  by  superior  address  in 
the  arts  of  administration  and  law,  the  ecclesiastics 
of  western  Europe  became  in  great  part  its  rulers. 
They  even  succeeded  in  controlling  the  kingship,  in  a 
certain  measure,  by  means  of  the  ceremonial  of  conse- 
cration and  coronation.  They  became  civil  judges 
by  virtue  of  their  ecclesiastical  oflSce.  They  became 
the  active  part  of  the  king's  council;  and  in  the 
Visigothic  kingdom  of  Spain  the  function  of  legisla- 
tion was  actually  exercised  by  the  synod  of  bishops. 
Even  more  effective  was  the  mechanism  whereby  the 
Church  gradually  established  its  hold  over  the  con- 
science of  the  individual  by  means  not  generally 
within  the  purview  of  law.  The  starting-point  here 
was  laudable  enough,  —  the  ethical  standard,  the 
demand  that  the  individual  should  live  rightly.  But 
the  unconscious  object  soon  became  far  from  lauda- 
ble, for  it  was  nothing  more  than  to  obtain  power  by 
morally  subjecting  the  individual  to  an  organization 
that  aspired  at  controlling  not  for  the  sake  of  morality, 
but  for  the  sake  of  power,  and  not  merely  its  Teutonic 
conquerors,  but  all  mankind.  Confession,  penance, 
excommunication,  these  were  the  great  means  of  ac- 
tion developed  by  the  Church. 


JUSTINIAN  AND  GREGORY  THE  GREAT    177 

Confession  of  sins  made  by  one  member  of  the 
Christian  community  to  another,  was  a  practice  of  the 
earliest  times.  By  the  third  century  it  had  become 
a  regular  method  whereby  the  Church  attempted  to 
keep  its  fold  free  from  the  great  offences  it  specially 
reprobated:  idolatry,  murder,  adultery.  In  the  fifth 
century,  during  the  pontificate  of  Leo  I,  the  mortal 
sins  were  made  to  coincide  with  those  crimes  which 
the  Roman  law  punished  by  death,  exile,  or  severe 
corporal  penalties,  and  confession  was  placed  exclus- 
ively in  the  hands  of  the  priest.  From  this  moment, 
largely  through  the  influence  of  the  monasteries,  the 
tendency  began  to  extend  the  working  of  confession 
downwards  from  grave  criminal  offences  to  petty 
deviations  of  conduct,  until  when  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury is  reached  the  rule  .was  laid  down  that  confes- 
sion at  least  once  a  year  was  an  obligation  for  every 
member  of  the  Church. 

Confession  involved  other  things.  Absolution,  a 
term  taken  from  the  Roman  law,  admitted  to  com- 
munion. Penance  was  imposed  as  a  condition  of  ab- 
solution. The  hardened  sinner  who  would  not  con- 
fess, not  repent,  not  do  penance,  might  be  excluded 
from  communion,  or  excommunicated.  When  dealing 
with  a  later  period  wp  shall  see  what  a  tremendous 
weapon  this  became  in  the  hands  of  the  Church,  even 
though  at  times  it  proved  to  have  a  double  edge. 

It  remains  to  be  said,  before  passing  to  the  pontifi- 
cate of  Gregory  the  Great,  that  the  German  kingdoms 
infused  new  elements  into  the  law.  Their  legislation 
was  influenced  by  the  Church  and  by  the  Roman 


178        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

law  according  to  their  proximity  to  Italy;  the  Salic 
law  of  northeastern  France  showing  least  Roman 
admixture,  that  of  the  Ostrogoths  in  Italy  most. 

The  pontificate  of  Gregory  I,  called  the  Great, 
lasted  from  590  to  604.  He  was  a  Roman  of  distin- 
guished birth,  grandson  of  Pope  Felix  IV,  and  early 
marked  out  for  high  oflBce.  He  became  Prsetor  of  the 
city,  but  quickly  renounced  this  dignity,  gave  his 
large  fortune  to  charitable  and  religious  institutions, 
and  retired  to  a  monastery  which  he  had  himself 
founded.  He  was  not  aHowed,  however,  to  bury  his 
talents  in  the  cloister.  Important  Church  missions 
were  entrusted  to  him;  and  finally  he  was  part  com- 
pelled, part  persuaded,  to  ascend  the  Papal  throne  in 
the  year  590. 

Gregory  immediately  set  to  work,  and  in  all  direc- 
tions, as  an  enthusiastic,  active  administrator  and 
organizer,  as  a  superstitious,  zealous  churchman  of  a 
markedly  mediaeval  type.  In  its  larger  aspects  his 
policy  aflSrmed  the  papal  power  over  western  Europe, 
by  rooting  up  Arianism  from  among  the  Lombards 
and  the  Visigoths,  by  securing  the  widespread  sub- 
mission of  the  western  bishops  to  Rome,  by  rejecting 
the  claims  of  the  Patriarch  of  Constantinople  to  pri- 
macy, by  converting  the  monastic  institution  into  a 
great  missionary  machine  under  the  supreme  control 
of  Rome.  This  last  feature  of  his  work  deserves  spe- 
cial notice. 

Monasticism  came  to  its  organization  in  the  sixth 
century.  St.  Benedict  (490-543)  founded  the  monas- 


JUSTINIAN  AND  GREGORY  THE  GREAT    179 

tery  of  Monte  Cassino,  and  formulated  a  rule,  the 
model  or  starting-point  for  all  the  orders  of  monks 
instituted  since  that  day.   The  Benedictine  rule  en- 
joined humility  and  obedience,  that  the  monk  should 
give  up  his  own  will  to  that  of  his  abbot,  that  he  should 
consider  himself  worthless  and  vile,  always  and  at  all 
times  fixing  his  looks  upon  the  ground.  In  other  words, 
for  the  sake  of  attaining  the  virtue  of  lowliness,  all 
else  —  individualism,  intelligence,  emotion  —  was  to 
be  killed.   Man  was  no  longer  to  raise  his  head  and 
gaze  at  all  that  surrounded  him,  at  nature,  at  his  fel- 
low man  or  the  woman  who  might  become  his  mate, 
he  was  no  longer  to  think,  to  choose  his  way,  to  solve 
his  difficulties,  to  struggle  against  fate,  but  he  was  to 
hang  his  head  in  humility  and  blindly  obey  another 
man  fitted  for  command  only  by  having  himself  passed 
before  through  that  soul-crushing  process.  The  more 
minute  provisions  of  the  rule  all  had  the  grand  ob- 
ject in  view  of  the  abasement  of  man  before  God.  The 
constant  obligation  to  repeat  set  formulas  and  cere- 
monial acts  at  all  hours  of  the  day  and  night  intensified 
the  process  of  intellectual  and  moral  mortification. 

Gregory  gave  the  monastic  movement  a  great  im- 
petus, and  converted  it  to  practical  purposes.  He 
supported  the  Benedictines  and  extended  the  sway 
of  their  order.  They  were  now  sent  forth  as  a  militia 
of  Rome,  to  fight  her  battles  on  the  borders  of  pagan- 
ism, and  to  bring  the  extreme  parts  of  Europe  under 
her  sway.  A  new  St.  Augustine  ^  led  forty  monks  into 

1  The  earlier  is  known  as  Augustine  of  Hippo,  the  later  as 
Augustine  of  Canterbury. 


180        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

Britain  to  convert  the  Saxon  kingdoms  in  that  island, 
and  to  found  the  church  of  Canterbury.  It  was  doubt- 
less with  them  in  mind  that  Newman  so  eloquently 
wrote:  "A  brotherhood  of  holy  pastors,  with  mitre 
and  crosier  and  uplifted  hand,  walked  forth  and 
blessed  and  ruled  a  joyful  people.  The  crucifix 
headed  the  procession,  and  simple  monks  were  there 
with  hearts  in  prayer,  and  sweet  chants  resounded, 
and  the  holy  Latin  tongue  was  heard,  and  boys  came 
forth  in  white,  swinging  censers,  and  the  fragrant 
cloud  arose,  and  mass  was  sung,  and  the  Saints  were 
invoked.  ..." 

These  words  strike  the  note  when  we  enter  the 
seventh  century.  The  work  of  Gregory  had  been  to 
consolidate  the  Church  as  a  militant  organization.  No 
detail  had  escaped  him.  While  with  one  hand  he  nego- 
tiated with  queen  Brunehaut  of  the  Franks  to  estab- 
lish Roman  control  over  the  synods  of  Gaul,  with  the 
other  he  worked  at  questions  of  vestments,  of  music, 
of  ceremonial.  He  gave  the  Roman  liturgy  its  form, 
and  imposed  it  on  western  Europe;  and  at  his  death 
he  left  the  Papacy  unquestionably  established  as  the 
one  supreme  and  stable  institution  of  Latin  Europe. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE  MILLENNIUM 

For  more  than  a  century  and  a  half  after  the  death 
of  Gregory,  the  history  of  the  Church  has  nothing 
notable  to  show.  The  Papacy  made  little  further 
advance;  it  fell  into  not  very  vigorous  hands,  and 
suffered,  as  did  all  Europe,  from  the  generally  bad 
conditions  of  the  epoch.  Yet  the  great  event  of  the 
times  was  religious.  For  only  a  few  years  after 
Gregory's  death,  in  622,  took  place  the  Hegira,  Mo- 
hammed's flight  from  Mecca  to  Medina;  —  a  new 
faith  had  come  into  existence,  rapidly  to  burst  on 
the  Mediterranean  world. 

Mohammedanism  need  not  be  considered  as  a  creed 
and  as  an  influence,  for  Christianity  had  now  lost  its 
early  fluidity,  was  now  well  past  the  formative  period  ; 
although  it  was  to  come  into  violent  shock  with  the 
new  religion  of  the  kaleidoscopic  East,  it  was  not 
to  draw  from  it  any  vital  elements.  All  that  need 
be  pointed  out  is  that  Mohammedanism  was  closely 
akin  to  primitive  Judaic  Christianity,  but  that,  com- 
pared with  later  Christianity,  it  kept  itself  untouched 
by  extraneous  influences;  its  creed  was  free  from  sub- 
tlety, more  easy  to  grasp,  though  less  adapted  to  mys- 
tify, than  that  of  Nicsea,  for  it  simply  declared  that 
God  was  God  and  that  Mohammed  was  his  prophet. 
Lastly,  it  may  be  noted  that  Mohammed  and  his 


182        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

successors  created,  what  Paul,  and  Constantine,  and 
the  Popes,  could  never  quite  bring  about,  a  complete 
union  of  the  temporal  and  spiritual  powers,  an  abso- 
lute theocracy. 

Mohammedanism  advanced  with  hurricane  ra- 
pidity. By  the  middle  of  the  seventh  century  it  had 
swept  over  Syria  to  the  north,  over  Africa  to  the 
west.  In  the  year  700,  the  Ommiads  carried  the 
crescent  almost  to  the  walls  of  Constantinople,  while 
to  the  west  Musa's  horse  pawed  the  surf  of  the 
Atlantic;  eleven  years  later  the  Visigoths  of  Spain 
were  routed;  in  730,  Avignon  was  captured,  the 
Rhone  was  crossed,  and  the  Alps  rose  in  sight  of 
the  Arab  banners.  The  moment  had  come  when 
the  two  great  streams  of  Arabian  conquest  appeared 
as  though  they  might  join  together  again  along  the 
northern  shores  of  the  Mediterranean,  submerge 
Constantinople  and  Rome,  and  in  one  last  effort 
destroy  the  tottering  civilization  to  which  Christian- 
ity had  given  a  new  but  precarious  lease  of  life.  It 
was  at  the  very  turn  of  this  great  crisis  that,  for  the 
first  time,  the  Franks  played  a  decisive  part  in  the 
affairs  of  Europe. 

We  have  already  caught  a  glimpse  or  two  of  the 
Franks.  They  had  been  among  the  first  of  the  Ger- 
man tribes  to  effect  a  settlement  within  the  bounds 
of  the  Empire,  occupying  the  district  about  the  mouth 
of  the  Rhine.  Yet  they  had  long  retained  their  primi- 
tive characteristics,  and  had  not  been  converted  to 
Christianity  until  the  year  496.  The  first  dynasty 
of  their  kings,  the  Merovingians,  fell  into  degeneracy 


THE  MILLENNIUM  183 

just  as  the  Mohammedan  era  was  beginning,  and  a 
century  later  a  new  family,  that  of  the  Carlovingians, 
was  rapidly  rising  to  power.  It  was  Charles  Martel, 
Mayor  of  the  Palace  of  the  Merovingian  puppet  king, 
who  rolled  back  the  tide  of  Mohammedan  success, 
by  defeating  the  Emir  Abdurrhaman  at  Tours  in  732. 
Presently  the  Arabs  fell  back  beyond  the  Pyrenees, 
and  the  danger  of  Europe  had  passed. 

From  this  moment  the  power  of  Charles  Martel 
and  his  successors  grew  apace.  Their  relations  with 
the  Papacy  became  very  important.  The  hold  that 
the  monk  missionaries  were  getting  on  the  frontiers 
was  now  one  of  the  chief  preoccupations  of  the  Popes. 
At  the  very  moment  when  the  Franks  were  driving 
the  Arabs  back  into  Spain,  St.  Boniface  was  con- 
verting the  German  countries  that  lie  between  the 
Rhine  and  the  Elbe.  He  was  created  a  bishop,  and 
then  archbishop  of  Mainz,  taking  an  oath  to  "his 
apostolic  Lord,"  the  Pope,  "  to  serve  thee  and  thy 
Church  in  all  things." 

As  Christianity  penetrated  Germany,  Prankish 
political  influence  followed.  Charles  Martel's  policy 
was  to  support  the  bishops;  and  in  the  year  739 
Rome  herself  turned  to  him  for  help.  The  power  of 
Constantinople  had  rapidly  waned  after  Justinian. 
The  Lombards  dominated  Italy,  a  constant  threat 
to  the  Popes,  who  barely  succeeded  in  maintaining 
a  shadowy  independence.  At  last  Gregory  III  ap- 
plied to  the  Franks  for  direct  help  and  intervention 
in  the  affairs  of  Italy. 

Charles  Martel  was  not  destined  to  play  this  larger 


184        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

part;  that  was  reserved  for  one  of  his  descendants. 
He  died  in  741.  There  followed  a  short  period  of  in- 
ternal dissension.  In  751,  however,  Pepin  the  Short, 
on  the  advice  of  Pope  Zachary,  summoned  an  as- 
sembly of  the  Prankish  nobles  and  proclaimed  him- 
self king;  and  in  the  following  year  the  Papacy  and 
the  Franks  came  definitely  together.  Astolf,  king  of 
the  Lombards,  pressed  Rome  and  also  Ravenna,  the 
last  hold  of  Constantinople  on  Italian  soil.  Pope 
Stephen  11,  instead  of  turning  to  the  feeble  Emperor 
of  the  East,  summoned  Pepin  to  protect  "the  cause 
of  §t.  Peter  and  the  Roman  Republic."  He  left  his 
threatened  capital,  journeyed  to  France,  and  conse- 
crated Pepin  in  the  church  of  St.  Denis.  The  new- 
crowned  Carlovingian  king  repaid  his  Papal  sponsor 
by  declaring  war  against  the  Lombards;  they  were 
foiled  in  a  determined  effort  to  capture  Rome;  they 
were  several  times  defeated  by  the  Franks;  and  by 
the  year  756  their  power  had  been  limited  to  north- 
ern Italy,  while  the  Pope  held  triumphant  possession 
of  the  centre  from  the  mouth  of  the  Po  to  Rome. 
This  was  the  real  foundation  of  that  central  Italian 
state  which  was,  with  slight  changes,  to  endure 
eleven  hundred  years. 

The  son  of  Pepin  was  Charlemagne,  who  main- 
tained the  close  relations  of  his  father  with  the  Pope. 
In  770  he  married  the  daughter  of  Didier,  king  of  the 
Lombards,  and  in  the  following  year  repudiated  her. 
Didier  thereupon  turned  against  Rome,  and  Pope 
Hadrian  I  called  for  the  Prankish  help.  The  Lom- 
bards fared  even  worse  at  the  hands  of  the  son  than 


THE  MILLENNIUM  185 

they  had  at  the  hands  of  the  father.  In  773  Charle- 
magne crossed  the  Alps  and,  after  a  struggle  of  some 
months,  crushed  the  Lombard  kingdom  out  of  exist- 
ence. In  April,  774,  the  king  of  the  Franks  made  a 
trmmphant  entry  into  Rome.  He  proceeded  to  the 
church  of  St.  Peter's,  built  at  the  time  of  Constantine, 
where  the  Pope  stood  ready  to  receive  him.  The 
Frank  dismounted,  and  after  reverently  kissing  every 
step  that  led  up  to  the  church,  entered  it  to  celebrate 
a  Christian  triumph. 

If  the  greatest  Teuton  of  his  time  was  so  completely 
under  the  wonderful  religious  spell  woven  by  the 
Latins  as  this  incident  would  suggest,  can  it  be  won- 
dered at  if  in  the  heart  of  Germany  that  spell  com- 
manded even  greater  miracles.?  Charlemagne  was  on 
conquest  bent,  and  realizing  that  religion  was  greater 
than  the  sword,  armed  himself  doubly.  He  smote 
with  one  hand  and  tendered  baptism  with  the  other. 
His  conquering  armies  reached  both  the  mouth  and 
the  source  of  the  Elbe,  and  after  their  victories  im- 
posed conversion,  built  churches,  installed  bishops. 
And  by  that  means  Charlemagne  succeeded  where 
Tiberius  and  Drusus  had  failed,  and  won  western 
and  southern  Germany  to  civilization. 

In  the  year  800  Charlemagne  was  at  the  pinnacle 
of  his  power.  France,  northern  Italy,  the  Elbe,  and 
a  great  part  of  the  Danube  were  his.  In  Europe  there 
was  little  else.  The  empire  of  Constantinople  was 
m  feeble  hands.  The  Saracens  held  Spain  and  the 
African  coast.  But  the  Papacy  was  once  more  threat- 
ened, and  needed  support  against  the  turbulent  aris- 


186        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

tocracy  of  Rome.  Leo  III  was  wounded  and  driven 
from  the  city.  He  sought  refuge  with  the  Frankish 
sovereign,  and  Charlemagne  promptly  marched  on 
Rome,  once  more  to  restore  the  Papal  power.  On  the 
25th  of  December  of  the  year  800,  the  day  sacred  to 
the  birth  of  Apollo,  and  Mithra,  and  Christ,  he  pro- 
ceeded for  the  second  time  to  St.  Peter's  to  render 
thanks,  and  to  assume  a  greater  and  well-won  dignity. 
But  priestcraft  intervened  to  raise  the  feeble  Pope 
above  the  mighty  sovereign.  As  Charlemagne  knelt 
at  the  high  altar  unawares,  the  Pope  placed  a  crown 
on  his  head  and  saluted  him  master  of  the  Roman 
world.  The  clergy  and  people  burst  into  the  accla- 
mations unheard  for  so  many  centuries :  "Augustus! 
Imperator!"  and  Rome  beheld  an  Emperor  once 
more. 

The  empire  of  Charlemagne  may  be  thought  of 
partly  as  a  belated  echo  of  the  old  empire  on  its  later 
military  and  semi-barbarian  footing,  partly  as  a  start- 
ing-point for  a  new  organization  of  Europe.  It  was 
only  a  succession  of  men  of  ability  on  the  throne  that 
had  made  the  new  Teutonic  empire  possible,  and  the 
constitution  of  the  Carlo vingian  monarchy,  with  all 
the  administrative  skill  that  Charlemagne  put  into 
it,  and  even  with  the  support  of  the  Church,  was  not 
as  strong  as  the  earlier  Roman  one  on  which  it  was 
in  part  modelled.  On  the  whole,  it  was  an  ephemeral 
coming  together  of  Christian  latinism  and  the  new 
teutonism,  of  the  Church  and  the  Germanic  tribal 
monarchies,  under  the  models  of  the  old  empire.   And 


THE  MILLENNIUM  187 

it  soon  passed  away  to  make  room  for  a  state  of 
affairs  widely  different. 

As  the  Merovingians  before  them,  so  the  Carlovin- 
gians  gradually  lost  their  hold.  The  successors  of 
Charlemagne  were  not  his  equals,  and  his  empire  and 
his  work  soon  went  to  pieces.  The  devotion  of  the 
Carlovingians  to  the  Church  helped  them  up  to 
the  beginning  of  the  ninth  century;  after  that  date 
the  Church  began  to  assert  an  uncontrollable  pre- 
ponderance. In  France  and  in  Germany  this  may  be 
chiefly  associated  with  the  spread  and  increase  of  the 
monastic  orders.  The  conquering  army  of  Christian 
missionaries  had  by  this  time  become  far  less  con- 
spicuous than  the  conquering  army  of  privileged 
land-grabbers.  In  the  eighth  century  the  abbey  of 
S.  Remi  of  Reims  already  possessed  seven  hundred 
manors;  that  of  St.  Mandeville  had  over  seventeen 
hundred  which,  in  about  a  hundred  years,  it  increased 
to  forty-eight  hundred;  the  abbey  of  Luxeuil  in  the 
ninth  century  had  fifteen  thousand  manors,  that  of 
St.  Martin  of  Tours  had  twenty  thousand  serfs.  The 
great  ecclesiastical  principalities  that,  down  to  the 
close  of  the  eighteenth  century,  streaked  the  map  of 
Europe  from  the  Zuyder  Zee  to  the  Tyrol,  along  the 
old  border  of  the  empire,  were  rapidly  taking  root. 

The  immense  extension  of  the  territorial  influence 
of  the  Church  struck  at  the  foundations  of  social 
order.  For  the  administrative  machinery  of  Charle- 
magne, like  that  of  Rome  and  of  Constantinople,  was 
more  bureaucratic  than  territorial;  while  the  tend- 
ency of  the  Middle  Ages  was  strongly  the  other  way. 


188        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

No  sooner  was  his  strong  arm  removed  than  Europe 
began  to  suffer  severely  from  the  last  and  worst  form 
of  the  barbarian  invasions.  The  Northmen  came  down 
in  their  ships  from  beyond  the  Elbe  and  for  two  cen- 
turies harried  France  and  Germany  within  a  zone  of 
about  two  hundred  miles  from  the  coast.  Eventu- 
ally they  conquered  Normandy,  Britain,  Sicily,  and 
Naples.  During  the  same  epoch  the  Slavs  and  Huns 
were  almost  equally  destructive  in  the  valley  of  the 
Danube,  and  the  Saracens  in  Italy  and  along  the 
Mediterranean  seaboard. 

For  the  present  general  purpose  this  epoch  of  an- 
archy and  devastation  may  be  thought  of  as  stretch- 
ing from  800  to  1000,  with  the  w^orst  period  midway 
between  these  dates.  And  in  it  sprang  up  military 
feudalism.  The  Comes  or  Count,  an  official  like  the 
Roman  Prsetor,  whom  Charlemagne  had  placed  in 
charge  of  the  provinces  of  his  empire,  continued  after 
his  death,  but  tended,  in  the  disintegration  that  fol- 
lowed, to  remain  permanently  at  his  post,  to  transmit 
it  by  inheritance  to  his  son,  to  acquire  local  rights 
and  prerogatives,  and  to  organize  defence  against  the 
barbarian  marauders.  Military  defence  against  the 
incessant  forays  of  piratical  bands  of  necessity  grew 
local,  while  the  soldier  demanded  special  privileges  in 
return  for  his  protection.  And  in  an  age  of  increasing 
chaos  and  misery,  with  money  scarce,  with  the  poor 
helpless  and  downtrodden,  with  the  soldier  more  and 
more  highly  trained  and  specialized,  the  characteristic 
features  of  feudalism  were  rapidly  evolved.  The  land 
gave  its  foundation  to  the  new  system.  The  Roman 


THE  MILLENNIUM  189 

villa  with  its  slaves  had  been  a  well-nigh  self-sup- 
porting economic  entity.  Its  successor,  the  mediaeval 
manor,  was  this  and  even  more.  The  land  supplied 
the  necessities  not  only  of  life  but  of  war,  and  the 
individual  was  worth  just  as  much  as  his  land.  Serfs 
and  cattle,  wood  and  watermill,  stout  walls  and  a 
craggy  cliff  to  bear  them,  trade  routes  to  tax  and 
harry,  villages  or  cities  to  oppress  or  defend,  these 
were  the  factors  of  the  feudal  soldier's  power.  And 
through  the  ninth  and  tenth  centuries,  and  later, 
this  power  of  the  local  military  landowner  was  grow- 
ing with  the  same  rapidity  as  the  landholding  of  the 
abbot  and  bishop. 

What  wonder  is  it,  then,  that  if  we  turn  to  the 
year  1000  and  view  the  situation  of  the  inheritance 
of  Charlemagne  at  that  date,  we  shall  find  something 
widely  different  from  what  existed  in  the  year  800. 
It  was  just  at  the  close  of  the  tenth  century  that 
the  Germanic  emperors,  successors  of  Charlemagne, 
monarchs  of  Swabia,  Franconia,  Saxony,  came  to 
a  clearly  elective  constitution.  They  alone,  in  the 
caste  of  Teutonic  warriors  that  asserted  lay  preroga- 
tives in  western  Europe,  were  to  depend  on  electoral 
and  not  hereditary  rights.  And  the  Church  had 
pushed  in  this  direction,  "zealous  for  a  method  of 
appointment  prescribed  by  its  own  law,"  ^  and  that 
gave  an  opening,  like  the  ceremonies  of  coronation 
and  consecration,  for  the  effective  intervention  of  the 
priest. 

Below  the  Emperor  the  hereditary  idea  prevailed, 
^  Bryce,  Holy  Roman  Empire,  p.  226. 


190        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

together  with  the  doctrine  of  the  relation  of  man  to 
man,  or  strictly  speaking,  of  land  beneficiary  to  land 
beneficiary,  by  successive  steps  of  superior  and  in- 
ferior on  a  reciprocal  basis  of  duty  and  service.  The 
Emperor  was  suzerain  of  dukes  and  counts,  who  in 
turn  had  their  own  vassals  bound  to  serve  them  with 
fewer  or  more  men-at-arms  according  to  the  extent 
of  their  territorial  holding.  And  so  through  all  so- 
ciety this  ladder-like  system  had  been  established, 
leaving  on  its  lowest  rung  the  serfs. 

The  Church  was  influenced  by  the  growth  of  feu- 
dalism, and  derived  from  it  elements  that  blended 
readily  with  similar  processes  already  long  maturing 
within  it.  Priests,  bishops,  abbots,  archbishops,  might 
now  be  viewed  like  the  feudal  military  hierarchy; 
while  the  Pope  might  be  imagined  at  the  head  of  the 
Church  in  the  same  supreme  sense  of  suzerainty  as 
the  Emperor  at  the  head  of  the  Empire.  This  idea 
was  fully  fledged  before  the  end  of  the  tenth  century; 
a  hundred  years  later  it  was  to  lead  to  an  inevitable 
conflict  between  Pope  and  Emperor  as  to  who  should 
top  the  new  European  edifice,  the  lay  or  the  ecclesias- 
tical suzerain. 

While  these  changes  were  proceeding,  the  Popes 
had  been  profiting  greatly  both  from  the  rise  and 
from  the  fall  of  the  Carlovingians.  They  had  founded 
a  lay  state  on  the  ruins  of  the  Lombard  kingdom  and 
the  Exarchate  of  Ravenna.  Their  secretaries  zeal- 
ously drew  up  and  stored  in  the  Lateran  archives 
documents  purporting  to  prove  the  validity  and  an- 
tiquity of  their  master's  new  claims.    This  was  the 


THE  MILLENNIUM  191 

origin  of  that  famous  forgery,  the  Donation  of  Con- 
stantine,  on  which  the  Church  for  so  many  centuries 
founded  its  rights  to  its  temporal  rule  over  central 
Italy;  it  is  in  fact  only  in  the  present-day  phase  of 
the  conflict  over  the  temporal  power  that  its  alleged 
grant  by  Constantine  has  been  dropped  as  a  funda- 
mental argument. 

To  the  same  epoch  belong  forged  Decretals,  the 
pseudo-Isidore,  and  other  works  of  zealous  but  mis- 
guided monkish  secretaries,  determined  at  all  costs 
to  strengthen  the  central  power  of  Rome,  and  accom- 
phshmg  —  for  such  are  the  incongruities  of  history  —  a 
more  durable  work  with  their  ignorant  and  dishonest 
goose  quills  than  the  ancient  Romans  had  with  their 
redoubtable  swords.  A  succession  of  able  Popes  who 
followed   Charlemagne  through  the  ninth  century 
down  to  the  year  888,  constantly  asserted  preroga- 
tives based  on  these  documents.   In  875  Pope  John 
VIII  crowned  Charles  the  Bald  Emperor,  and  on  this 
occasion  formally  asserted  the  undeniable  right  of 
the  Popes  to  grant  the  imperial  crown. 

Had  the  successors  of  John  been  able  to  carry  on 
this  tradition  and  movement,  it  seems  quite  possible 
that  by  the  year  1000,  which  is  the  goal  of  this  chap- 
ter, the  Papacy  might  have  capped  the  entire  feudal 
edifice  with  an  undisputed  religious  kingship  akin  to 
the  Caliphate.  But  the  history  of  Europe  was  not  de- 
stined to  take  this  turn.  For  just  at  the  critical  mo- 
ment the  Papacy  ceased  to  produce  men  of  ambition 
and  ability.  A  series  of  feeble  Pontiffs  reflected  no 
new  dignity  on  Rome.  Feudalism  was  breaking  up 


192        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

Europe  into  small  fragments,  and  Papal  interests  be- 
came more  localized.  Roman  families  fought,  bribed, 
and  intrigued  for  an  oflSce  that  soon  lost  all  sanctity. 
In  the  middle  of  the  tenth  century  a  woman,  the  fa- 
mous Marozia,  held  the  Papacy  in  her  gift;  she  placed 
one  lover  and  three  sons  and  grandsons  in  the  Papal 
chair.  And  when  later,  in  962,  Pope  John  XII 
crowned  the  Emperor  Otto  in  St.  Peters',  so  far  was 
he  from  asserting  the  claim  of  John  VIII  that  he  ac- 
knowledged himself  the  Emperor's  subject,  and  ac- 
cepted that  the  Romans  should  swear  that  no  elec- 
tion to  the  Papacy  could  be  held  valid  without  the 
Emperor's  consent. 

And  here  a  general  remark  must  be  made.  There 
is  no  continuous  record  in  western  annals  that  ap- 
proaches the  twenty  centuries,  more  or  less,  of  the 
Papacy.  Within  that  period  such  reversals  of  policy 
as  that  just  described  have  been  of  constant  occur- 
rence; Popes  have  come  in  series  good  and  bad;  and 
those  series  as  often  as  not  have  come  to  an  abrupt 
end.  So  that,  although  the  general  interrelation  be- 
tween the  great  European  movements  and  the  Papacy 
may  always  be  looked  for  as  a  prime  factor,  there  has 
frequently  been  a  remarkable  secondary  factor  to  be 
found  in  the  make-up  of  the  Papacy  at  any  given 
time.  At  the  close  of  the  tenth  century  one  of  these 
rapid  transitions  was  about  to  take  place.  The  Ger- 
man Emperors  stretched  their  hand  out  over  Rome 
to  protect  her  sacred  institution.  In  999  the  learned 
Gerbert  was  placed  on  the  Papal  throne  by  Otto  III, 
and  the  German  influence  paved  the  way  for  the 


THE  MILLENNIUM  193 

series  of  great  Popes  that  was  soon  to  arise  and  to 
carry  the  Papacy  to  its  highest  point. 

During  the  tenth  century  however,  when  the  Pa- 
pacy was  at  so  low  an  ebb,  a  strong  religious  feel- 
ing was  at  work  in  Europe,  a  precursor  of  the  great 
movement  of  the  centuries  to  come.  It  was  an  age 
of  failure,  of  devastation,  of  misery,  and  of  ignor- 
ance. What  wealth  there  was  belonged  to  the  Church 
and  to  a  few  great  lords.  From  the  mass  of  the  poor 
a  cry  of  desolation  went  up,  a  despairing  cry  to  the 
Consoler  and  Redeemer  Jesus.  And  under  these  con- 
ditions an  old  belief  of  the  Church  reappeared  under 
a  new  guise. 

The  earliest  Christians  had  been  second  advent- 
ists;  they  expected  the  immediate  reappearance  of 
Jesus.  This  belief  gradually  died  down,  and  was 
no  longer  fundamental  at  the  time  of  the  conver- 
sion of  Constantine.  That  event,  and  the  subse- 
quent triumph  of  Christianity,  resulted  in  its  com- 
plete eclipse,  and  within  fifty  years  the  Council  of 
Laodicea  condemned  the  Apocalypse,  in  which  the 
doctrine  of  the  second  coming  found  its  extreme 
expression.  The  action  of  the  Council  of  Laodicea 
was  fortunately  not  followed  up  by  later  councils, 
yet  by  the  middle  of  the  fifth  century  the  belief 
in  the  second  coming  was  practically  extinct.  Five 
hundred  years  later  it  awoke  again,  and  took  the 
form  of  a  widespread  conviction  that  the  year 
1000  would  witness  the  descent  of  Jesus  Christ  on 
earth. 

Another  aspect  of  religious  emotion  blended  with 


194        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

this.  One  of  the  curious  sides  of  the  revolution  of 
Constantine  had  been  witnessed  in  Jerusalem.  Christ- 
ians flocked  to  the  sacred  city.  The  pagan  temples 
were  torn  down.  Churches  were  built  on  sites  that 
were  conjectured  to  be  associated  with  the  presence 
of  Jesus.  The  Empress  Helena  performed  a  memor- 
able pilgrimage,  and  presently  was  found  to  have  set 
a  widely  followed  example.  Pilgrimage  became  the 
test  of  fervour,  and  great  was  the  pilgrim's  reward. 
At  Jerusalem  everything  was  miraculous,  from  the 
marvellous  success  of  the  Galilean  peasant  three 
centuries  after  his  death,  —  a  very  real  miracle,  — 
to  the  extraordinary  output  by  the  local  clergy  of 
Christian  relics  in  quantities  almost  sufficient  to  sup- 
ply the  insatiable  demand  made  for  such  objects  by 
the  credulity  of  the  dark  and  other  ages.  The  subject 
must  not  be  dwelt  on,  it  lends  itself  too  easily  to  the 
wit  of  the  mere  scoffer.  Here  we  are  less  concerned 
with  ridiculing  the  clumsy,  absurd,  often  indecent, 
objects  and  legends  foisted  on  a  superstitious  world, 
than  we  are  with  perceiving  that  the  simplicity,  how- 
ever absurd,  with  which  such  things  were  manufac- 
tured and  accepted  merely  expressed  the  spirit  of  an 
age.  And  that  spirit,  even  if  deeply  tainted  with  ig- 
norance, fear,  and  superstition,  was  a  spirit  of  faith 
deeply  imbued  with  the  aspiration  for  higher  and 
better  things,  love,  good  will,  and  charity. 

From  the  fourth  century  to  the  tenth  the  tradition 
of  pilgrimage  was  continuous.  With  the  myriad 
shrines  of  Europe  now  well  supplied  with  a  varied 
assortment   of   miracle-working   relics,   ascribed   to 


THE  MILLENNIUM  195 

Jesus  and  his  saints,  pilgrimage,  accompanied  by 
suitable  oblations,  became  one  of  the  great  forms  of 
penance  for  the  sinner,  of  pious  profit  for  the  Church. 
Jerusalem  continued  to  draw  many  pilgrims,  and  that 
even  after  the  Arabian  conquest,  as  the  Caliphs  tol- 
erated the  Christian  churches.  But  a  climax  came 
with  the  year  1000.  All  through  desolated  Europe 
the  belief  had  rapidly  spread  that  the  culminating 
miracle  was  at  hand:  "For  the  Lord  himself,"  as  St. 
Paul  had  written,  "shall  descend  with  a  shout,  with 
the  voice  of  an  archangel,  and  with  the  trump  of  God : 
and  the  dead  in  Christ  shall  rise  first.  Then  we  which 
are  alive  and  remain  shall  be  caught  up  together  with 
them  in  the  clouds,  to  meet  the  Lord  in  the  air,  and  so 
shall  we  ever  be  in  the  Lord." 

And  so,  to  meet  the  Lord  descending  on  his  holy 
city  of  Jerusalem,  many  thousands  started  on  a  long 
and  weary  journey  in  that  very  year  999  in  which 
Gerbert  became  Pope.  On  the  night  which  the 
Julian  calendar  assigned  for  the  close  of  that  year, 
a  great  multitude  stood  awaiting  a  splendid  dawn 
in  the  Vale  of  Jehosaphat.  We  have  no  record  of 
how  they  looked,  of  their  joys,  fears,  excitement,  and 
crushing  disappointment,  —  and  yet  that  sombre  pic- 
ture haunts  the  imagination.  It  evokes  the  valley 
steeped  in  obscurity,  the  mass  of  pilgrims  gathered 
there  at  the  cost  of  so  much  suffering,  the  darkness 
of  their  ignorance,  the  dismal  gloom  of  that  next 
morning  of  cruel  unfulfilment,  and  the  yearning 
emotion,  the  faith,  the  throb  of  that  aspiration  for 
what  is  better  and  higher  which,  more  than  any  god 


196        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

or  myth,  is  the  real  redeemer  of  mankind.  The  unfor- 
tunate men  and  women  who  stood  disconsolate  in 
the  vale  of  Jehosaphat,  looking  up  into  the  godless 
sky,  may  stand  for  ever-suffering,  ever-ignorant,  and 
ever-hoping  humanity,  steadfast  in  the  divine  illusion 
that  a  new  and  more  perfect  life  is  at  hand. 


CHAPTER  XII 

AFTER   THE   MILLENNIUM 

"As  the  third  year  after  the  year  1000  opened, 
a  similar  event  took  place  in  nearly  the  whole  world, 
but  especially  in  Italy  and  France :  there  began  a  re- 
building of  the  churches.  Most  of  them,  however, 
were  properly  built  and  there  was  no  need  of  change; 
but  among  all  Christian  countries  arose  a  rivalry  as 
to  which  should  have  the  most  beautiful  sanctuaries. 
Everywhere,  in  the  cathedrals,  in  the  monasteries,  in 
the  smallest  parishes,  the  sanctuaries  were  improved." 
Such  is  the  unadorned  and  remarkable  statement  of 
the  chronicler  Glaber.  And  it  gives  perhaps  a  clearer 
impression  than  any  other  could  of  what  occurred  in 
Europe  immediately  after  the  millennium. 

There  are  moments  in  the  life  of  nations,  epochs 
of  ascending  vitality,  that  baffle  the  investigator 
until  he  turns  for  an  explanation  to  the  processes  of 
nature  as  seen  in  the  lives  of  plants  or  of  animals. 
For  a  brief  spell  nothing  can  resist  the  upward  push 
of  the  stem,  the  bud,  the  flower,  nothing  can  resist 
the  impetuous  rush  of  youthful  sap.  In  historical 
movements  it  is  the  same,  though  the  complexity  of 
the  factors  is  beyond  the  power  of  human  statement. 
The  mind  fails  to  grasp  and  words  fail  to  describe 
even  that  which  is  perceived.  But  we  recognise,  we 
know,  that  at  about  a  certain  date,  a  nation  or  even 


198        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

many  nations  will  show  symptoms  that  some  such 
process  is  at  work,  and,  although  we  can  never  ex- 
plain how,  we  can  see  that  it  passes  through  the 
natural  sequence:  the  youthful  push,  the  blossoming, 
and  then  decay.  We  shall  now  be  concerned  with 
just  such  a  process. 

What  we  shall  see,  then,  in  the  eleventh,  twelfth 
and  thirteenth  centuries,  is  the  tremendously  vital 
push  of  youthful  Europe  under  the  stimulating  shock 
of  the  two  great  figures  of  the  Middle  Ages,  the  Ro- 
man priest  and  the  feudal  soldier,  each  with  his  weak- 
ness and  each  with  his  strength.  The  priest  craves  for 
emasculated  power,  based  on  the  ignorance  and  moral 
cowardice  of  those  he  hopes  to  rule;  yet  he  founds 
that  power  on  the  doctrine  of  the  Christian  virtues, 
and  more  than  once  succeeds  in  arraying  faith  and 
altruism  in  his  cause.  The  soldier,  on  the  other  hand, 
enjoys  and  abuses  the  power  that  comes  from  the 
direct  application  of  might;  he  enforces  order  when 
it  suits  his  interests  and  fancies;  he  disturbs  order 
wherever  he  finds  a  weaker  neighbour;  he  perpetuates 
warfare,  for  it  is  the  source  of  his  supremacy,  and 
therefore  of  his  enjoyment.  Between  these  two  ideals 
a  struggle  was  inevitable  and  the  first  great  victory 
was  won  by  the  Church  over  feudalism  when  it  se- 
cured the  establishment  of  the  Truce  of  God. 

The  power  and  ambition  of  the  Papacy  shot  up  with 
great  vigour  after  the  pontificate  of  Gerbert.  Sev- 
eral great  Popes  arose,  none  greater  than  Gregory  VII 
or  Innocent  III.  They  strove  for  the  supremacy  of 
Europe.  They  hurled  feudalism  against  Islam,  against 


AFTER  THE  MILLENNIUM  199 

the  Greek  Empire,  against  the  unorthodox  Christians 
of  southern  France.  They  reinforced  the  organiza- 
tion of  Rome,  and  in  no  way  more  effectively  than  in 
the  creation  of  new  monastic  orders,  —  the  Francis- 
cans, preachers  of  humihty  and  charity,  the  Domin- 
icans, preachers  of  the  Roman  dogma  and  the  Roman 
supremacy.  Even  feudaHsm  was  caught  by  the  ex- 
ample, and  established  its  own  orders.  Knights  Tem- 
plars, Hospitallers,  and  others. 

Nor  was  this  the  only  lesson  feudalism  was  taught. 
From  its  conflict  with  the  ethical  teaching  of  the 
Church,  and  from  its  contact  during  the  crusades 
with  the  superior  civilization  and  polish  of  the  East, 
it  derived  many  of  the  elements  of  the  code  of  chiv- 
alry that  was  to  cloak  it  with  its  brightest  and  most 
attractive  colours.  But  from  the  East  also,  it  was 
to  bring  back  to  Europe  germs  of  scepticism  which 
all  the  eloquence  of  the  Dominicans  and  the  homi- 
cidal fury  of  Innocent  could  not  destroy.   If  after 
the  eleventh  century  emperors  and  kings  and  states- 
men tend  towards  incredulity  and  atheism,  is  it  not 
that  they  have  seen  the  East,  that  they  have  tasted 
defeat  at  the  hands  of  those  who  believed  not  in 
Jesus  but  in  Mohammed.?    And  may  we  not  even 
guess  that  at  heart  great   feudal   lords  might  view 
with  suspicion  and  disdain  the  plebeian  of  Galilee 
whose  cross  they  bore,  and  his  plebeian  representa- 
tive in  the  chair  of  St.  Peter,  on  whose  behalf  they 
had  been  made  to  bite  the  dust  before  the  scimitars 
of  Islam  and  the  triumphant  shout:  God  is  God,  and 
Mohammed  is  his  Prophet! 


200         TTIK   llOl.Y   (  IIKISTIW    CTTrRCTT 

jNli^hly  monarchv^  liko  \\\c  VAnpvrov  Frederick  II 
boeaine  inferied  with  disbelief,  and  knii^litly  orders, 
like  that  of  Si.  John,  and  even  whole  i)rovinees  like 
Provence  or  Languedoc;  and  Rome  succeeded  in 
meeting  this  threat  of  unbelief,  more  terrible  than  the 
political  threat  of  the  empire  and  of  the  new  mon- 
archies. She  uncompromisingly  challenged  heresy; 
she  enlisted  tlie  f(Midal  sword  in  her  service;  she 
exterminated  the  Albigenses  and  set  back  the  clock 
of  intellectual  freedom  for  nu\ny  years. 

Again  mixed  factors  prevail.  If  Trovence  hail  de- 
veU^ped  an  anti-Koman  mode  of  thought,  the  cause 
was  not  wholly  in  the  reestablishcil  contact  with  the 
Orient.  An  occidental  cause,  soon  to  play  the  most 
far-reaching  part,  was  already  at  work.  This  was  the 
formation  of  new  languages  that  were  destined  soon 
to  reduce  the  Latin  tongue  to  the  same  dust  as  the 
more  fragile  structures  of  the  Latin  architects.  And 
it  was  in  part  to  resist  this  new  birth  of  mankind  in 
the  discovery  of  new  languages  that  the  Church  pro- 
thiced  and  sn]>])cn-icd  its  universities  and  its  scholas- 
tic philosophy. 

For  the  demands  of  this  active  and  complex  age 
had  of  necessity  developed  the  bands  of  monkish 
secretaries,  perpetrators  of  forged  decretals  and  other 
convenient  frauds,  into  something  more  elaborate,  - 
schools  of  priests  or  aspirants  studying  the  canon  and 
civil  law.  and  thence  slowly  pushing  on  to  studies  less 
closely  comiected  with  -the  glory  and  power  of  the 
Church.  Before  long  great  universities  were  arising, 
Bologna,  Paris,  Cambridge,  Salamanca,  Oxford;  scho- 


AFTER  THE  MILLENNIUM  201 

lasticism,  theology,  medicine,  and  law  flourished,  and 
unorthodoxy  too  in  slight  degree;  and  great  contro- 
versies arose,  like  that  between  realists  and  nominal- 
ists. In  all  this  the  East  again  played  its  part,  and 
through  the  Arabian  philosopher  Averrhoes  the  ideas 
of  Aristotle  filtered  into  the  European  mind  once 
more,  and  were  for  the  moment  caught  up  into 
an  ecclesiastical  philosophy  by  the  "angel  of  the 
schools,"  Thomas  Aquinas. 

Such  were  some  of  the  currents  and  countercurrents 
of  Europe  during  this  epoch ;  and  to  finish  the  picture 
let  us  add  just  a  glimpse  of  the  external  aspect  of  the 
Western  world.  It  was  very  dirty,  unsanitary,  for 
the  most  part  sordid.  Its  rapidly  increasing  popula- 
tion spoke  rough  jargons,  compounds  of  Teutonic 
and  Latin  speech.  They  believed  in  extreme  things, 
force  and  miracles.  They  obeyed  equally  the  priest 
and  the  baron.  Their  thatched  hovels  rose  in  un- 
savoury fungus  heaps,  relieved  in  very  few  spots  as  yet 
by  burgher  opulence,  but  with  two  mighty  and  con- 
trasting structures  dominating  them  at  either  hand: 
the  dungeon  and  the  cathedral.  Into  those  two  por- 
tentous forms  of  mortared  stone  these  three  centuries 
stamped  their  record.  The  feudal  keep,  ever  greater, 
more  massive,  more  crenellated,  complex,  and  for- 
bidding, was  the  symbol  of  petty  tyranny  that  no- 
thing but  the  advance  of  science  could  obliterate. 
The  cathedral,  rising  so  rapidly  to  all  its  flamboyant 
glory,  twisting  its  Gothic  spires,  its  ascetic  carvings  or 
grotesque  gargoyles  towards  heaven,  was  the  symbol 
of  the  new  life  of  the  Church.  For  before  the  year 


202        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

1000  men  had  been  content  to  stretch  their  hands  to 
the  sky  awaiting  their  redeemer ;  now  they  awaited  him 
no  longer,  and  left  to  masonry  the  task  of  continuing 
their  prayer  and  of  proclaiming  their  faith.  Before 
the  millennium  the  Church  was  looking  to  the  future 
and  leaving  the  present  to  take  care  of  itself;  after 
the  millennium  it  glorified  the  past  and  set  to  work 
to  improve  present  opportunities. 

Having  thus  given  some  impression  of  what  the 
epoch  stands  for  in  general  terms,  we  must  now  view 
some  of  its  more  salient  events  in  due  historical 
order. 

It  was  during  the  eleventh  century  that  the  last 
wave  of  disrupting  invasion,  that  which  is  more  pe- 
culiarly associated  with  the  Normans,  finally  found 
its  level.  The  Normans  settled.  They  adopted  and 
perfected  military  feudalism.  They  founded  states, 
Normandy,  Naples,  and  England.  And  this  culmi- 
nation of  their  efforts,  at  a  moment  when  Moham- 
medanism was  losing  its  vigour,  tended  to  give 
Europe  the  opportunity  of  adjusting  itself  and  grow- 
ing up  to  its  new  institutions. 

The  enforced  customs  of  feudalism  grew  into  a 
mass  of  which  a  part  found  strict  legal  expression. 
And  the  growth  of  canon  law  and  of  feudal  law  in- 
volved their  special  study,  involved  schools,  univer- 
sities. In  the  early  years  of  the  eleventh  century  we 
find  a  collection  of  capitularies  made  for  a  priestly 
school  at  Padua,  and  a  hundred  years  later  Ugolino 
da  Porta  Ravignana  added  a  collation  of  feudal  law 


AFTER  THE  MILLENNIUM  203 

to  the  code  of  Justinian.  Primogeniture,  an  out- 
standing feature  of  feudal  law,  becomes  the  estab- 
lished rule  of  the  French  monarchy  just  before  the 
year  1000. 

Feudalism  in  its  early  and  most  military  age  meant 
a  vast  number  of  semi-independent  petty  tyrants 
constantly  fighting  with  one  another.   War  was  their 
livelihood,  their  pastime,  their  justification;  and  they 
finally  had  to  invent  a  way  of  turning  even  peace  into 
war  by  jousting  at  one  another  in  tourneys.  At  the 
very  worst    epoch,  when    Europe   resounded    with 
clanging  armour  and  the  sky  was  darkened  with  the 
smoke  of  destruction,  the  Church  intervened.  This 
outrage  on  humanity  must  cease;  there  must  be  a  re- 
spite. And  between  the  year  of  the  millennium  and 
that  of  the  Norman  conquest  of  England,  the  Truce 
of  God  was  established,  and  a  system  of  land  peace, 
and,  in  a  few  larger  cities,  peace  associations  were 
formed  in  restraint  of  feudal  license.  The  Truce  of 
God  rapidly  became  "an  elaborate  penal  code  for 
the  protection  of  special  days  and  seasons" ;i  a  code 
enforced  by  the  ecclesiastical  machinery,  penance, 
confession,  excommunication. 

With  Henry  III,  in  the  middle  of  the  eleventh 
century,  the  imperial  power  reached  a  very  high  point. 
The  German  influence  still  prevailed  in  the  city  of 
Rome,  where  the  Papacy  had  not  altogether  main- 
tained the  higher  level  which  Gerbert  had  reached. 
In  1046  Henry  proceeded  to  Rome  at  the  head  of  a 
considerable  army;  he  deposed  several  claimants  to 
^  Fisher,  Mediceval  Emp.  i,  200. 


204         THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

the  Papacy,  and  installed  another  German  priest 
on  the  throne  in  the  person  of  Clement  II. 

In  1056  the  Emperor  died,  leaving  a  son  six 
years  of  age  who  became  the  Emperor  Henry  IV. 
His  youth  was  taken  advantage  of,  and  disorder 
broke  out  in  Germany,  which  culminated  in  the 
famous  war  of  the  Investitures  (1073-1122)  and 
in  the  great  struggle  between  Henry  and  the  Pa- 
pacy. 

Gregory  VII,  who  ascended  the  Papal  throne  in 
1073,  was  the  monk  Hildebrand  of  Cluny.  This 
famous  monastery  of  the  Benedictine  Order  had  been 
founded  early  in  the  tenth  century  free  from  lay  su- 
zerainty. It  had  acquired  great  wealth  and  many 
houses.  It  had  encouraged  study,  practised  religious 
virtue,  and  turned  its  attention  to  the  reform  and 
success  of  the  Church.  It  had  already  sent  forth  from 
its  gates  several  great  churchmen,  and  was  now  to 
produce  the  greatest  of  them  all . 

Hildebrand  was  probably  of  German  extraction, 
though  born  at  Soano  in  Tuscany  (1020).  He  was 
brought  up  to  a  religious  life  in  Italy,  and  passed 
some  years  at  Rome  before  he  went  to  Cluny,  with 
which  he  was  more  closely  to  be  associated.  His  per- 
sonality marked  him  out  for  important  missions.  He 
became  chaplain  and  adviser  of  Gregory  VI,  of  Leo 
IX,  of  Henry  III;  and  in  these  years  he  threw  all  his 
weight  into  a  movement  for  a  fundamental  reform  in 
the  mode  of  selecting  the  Popes  that  would  give  the 
Papacy  autonomy  and  independence.  That  move- 
ment was  not  completed  during  his  lifetime,  but  it 


AFTER  THE  MILLENNIUM  205 

will  be  more  convenient  for  our  purpose  to  deal  with 
it  as  a  whole  now. 

Until  the  twelfth  century,  when  the  Conclave  and 
the  College  of  Cardinals  provided  the  mechanism  of 
the  Papal  election,  the  choice  of  a  Pope  was  effected 
in  various  ways.  In  early  times  there  had  been  the 
vote  of  the  congregation;  later,  the  tumultuous  accla- 
mation of  priests  and  people;  Emperors  had  ap- 
pointed; the  office  of  Patrician  had  been  devised  and 
had  carried  the  right  to  nominate;  force  and  fraud. 
Teuton  swords  and  Roman  wiles,  all  had  equally  con- 
tributed to  the  selection  of  the  Vicar  of  God  on  earth. 
Now,  under  the  push  of  the  men  of  Cluny,  the  Papacy 
determined  to  obtain  complete  control  of  its  most  im- 
portant function.  And  this  resulted,  from  the  middle 
of  the  eleventh  to  the  middle  of  the  twelfth  century, 
in  the  creation  of  the  machinery  of  the  Conclave  and 
the  College  of  Cardinals. 

The  cardinals  represent  a  slow  development.  Orig- 
inally they  were  the  high  ecclesiastics  who  formed  the 
staff  of  the  Pope.  To  them  was  now  given  the  exclus- 
ive right  to  select  a  Pope;  and  in  fact,  if  not  in  theory, 
this  meant  appointing  one  of  their  own  number.  The 
electoral  conclave  in  which  this  process  was  conducted 
gradually  evolved  its  traditions  and  rules.  The  Em- 
peror and  the  kings  watched  its  proceedings  jeal- 
ously, and  eventually  Spain,  France,  and  Austria 
claimed  and  exercised  the  right  of  each  excluding  one 
cardinal  from  the  succession.  A  two-thirds  majority 
was  declared  to  be  necessary.  A  system  of  electoral 
intrigue  grew  up.  And  in  general  the  result  obtained 


206        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

was  the  election  of  an  elderly  and  diplomatic  church- 
man to  a  post  that  frequently  required  the  vigour  and 
boldness  of  youth.  What  Hildebrand  saw  in  this 
institution  was  the  means  of  withdrawing  the  Papacy 
from  under  the  influence  of  the  Emperor. 

When  he  became  Pope  in  1073  he  promptly  dis- 
played all  the  energy  of  a  radical  reformer.  He  at- 
tacked simony,  —  the  traflSc  in  ecclesiastical  benefices 
that  was  largely  stimulated  by  the  feudal  invasion 
of  the  Church.  He  insisted  on  the  rule,  hitherto  never 
complied  with,  of  the  celibacy  of  the  regular  clergy. 
Above  all  he  stood  out  against  lay  investiture,  the 
grant  of  a  church  benefice  by  a  layman  to  a  cleric.  For 
in  that  growing  custom  he  saw  the  inevitable  triumph 
of  the  soldier  and  the  vassalage  of  the  priest.  He  de- 
clared it  a  sin,  and  the  word  implied  all  the  ecclesias- 
tical pains  and  penalties,  for  a  priest  to  accept  a  bene- 
fice from  a  layman  under  conditions.  And  this  brought 
him  into  direct  and  bitter  conflict  with  the  Empire. 

About  one  half  of  the  land  of  Germany  was  now  held 
by  the  Church,  under  feudal  tenure.  The  Emperors 
had,  on  the  whole,  encouraged  this  state  of  things;  for 
they  found  it  easier  to  raise  money  from  the  well- 
developed  lands  of  non-combatant  churchmen,  than 
to  gain  adequate  support  from  the  turbulent  and  eco- 
nomically careless  barons.  But  this  stroke  of  Gregory, 
if  successful,  would  transfer  the  real  control  of  Ger- 
many from  the  Emperor  to  the  Pope,  and  that  Henry 
could  not  accept. 

The  Pope  secured  the  aid  of  the  Norman  king- 
dom of  Naples  and  of  a  dissatisfied  section  of  German 


AFTER  THE  MILLENNIUM  207 

barons.  He  himself  wielded  the  most  formidable 
weapons.  In  1076  he  pronounced  judgment  against 
Henry;  he  excommunicated  and  he  deposed  him. 
The  Papal  sentence  produced  a  sensation.  For  it  was 
a  declaration  that  the  supreme  sovereignty  of  Europe 
was  based  on  a  contract  in  terms  of  divine  law  of 
which  the  Pope  was  arbiter;  it  meant  an  awe-in- 
spiring exclusion  from  the  communion  of  the  Church 
that  seemed  a  preliminary,  in  that  superstitious  age, 
of  all  the  torments  of  the  future  Hell. 

It  may  be  noticed  here  that  the  sentence  of  ex- 
communication against  the  Emperor  was  based  by 
Gregory  on  proper  precedents.  Those  precedents, 
however,  in  the  writings  or  decrees  of  Anselm,  Ha- 
drian, Isidore  of  Seville,  and  the  pseudo  Isidore,  were 
in  the  main  a  series  of  forgeries  and  encroachments. 
Any  fraud  appeared  justified  to  the  wielders  of  the 
clerical  pen  in  their  struggle  for  supremacy,  and  even 
when  they  were  not  consciously  dishonest  their  stand- 
ards of  accuracy  were  so  low  as  to  render  their  docu- 
ments almost  valueless  even  when  honestly  inten- 
tioned.  To  illustrate  this  let  us  take  the  words  of  the 
pious  Agnellus,  bishop  of  Ravenna,  who  compiled  the 
biographies  of  his  predecessors  in  that  see:  —  "Where 
I  have  not  found  any  history  of  these  bishops  and 
have  not  been  able  by  conversation  with  aged  men 
.  .  .  to  obtain  information  concerning  them  .  .  . 
I  have  composed  the  life  myself  with  the  help  of  God 
and  the  prayers  of  the  brethren."  The  age  was  some- 
what too  imaginative  to  be  altogether  trusted  in 
matters  of  evidence! 


208        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

For  a  brief  spell  Hildebrand  triumphed.  Henry 
was  deserted  by  his  followers.  Finding  resistance 
hopeless,  he  fell  back  on  diplomacy  and  met  the  priest 
with  his  own  weapons.  At  Canossa,  in  Tuscany,  the 
Pope  admitted  the  penitent  and  suppliant  Emperor 
into  his  presence  after  he  had  humbly  waited  at  the 
castle  gates  three  days  for  his  audience.  The  scene  is 
perhaps  the  most  dramatic  and  pregnant  of  the  me- 
diseval  epoch,  and  in  its  externals  represents  the  high- 
est level  touched  by  the  Papacy. 

No  sooner  released  from  his  excommunication, 
Henry  resumed  the  struggle.  Gregory  replied  by 
his  famous  decree  of  investitures,  and  by  once  more 
excommunicating  Henry  (1078-1080).  But  the  Em- 
peror had  now  got  hold  of  the  situation.  He  ap- 
pointed an  anti-Pope,  Clement  III,  marched  on 
Rome,  and  captured  the  city.  Gregory's  last  years 
closed  in  defeat,  and  he  died  under  Norman  pro- 
tection at  Salerno  in  the  year  1086. 

During  the  next  forty  years  the  struggle  between 
Popes  and  Emperors  continued,  still  ostensibly  over 
the  question  of  investiture,  but  also  in  large  degree 
over  the  question  of  whether  the  Germans  should  es- 
tablish direct  feudal  supremacy  over  Italy.  And  both 
these  questions  were  covered  in  the  party  distinction 
of  Guelph  and  Ghibelline,  the  former  being  that  of 
Papal  and  burgher  rights,  the  latter  of  imperial  and 
baronial  ones. 

In  the  year  1122  the  Concordat  of  Worms  marked 
a  truce  and  a  compromise  that  gave  a  working  basis 
for  the  relations  of  Church  and  State  in  the  matter 


AFTER  THE  MILLENNIUM  209 

of  investiture.  Bishops  or  Abbots  were  to  be  elected 
in  the  presence  of  the  Emperor  or  his  delegate,  and 
were  then  to  receive  the  sceptre  from  him.  The 
consecration  and  the  giving  of  the  pastoral  ring  and 
staff  remained  in  ecclesiastical  hands. 

This  same  period  of  half  a  century  or  so  had  wit- 
nessed a  notable  development  in  the  conditions  of 
Papal  Rome,  an  indirect  result  of  its  struggle  for  su- 
premacy. "What  had  heretofore  been  a  church 
was  now  only  a  Curia,  that  is,  a  battlefield  for  liti- 
gants, a  chancery  of  scribes,  of  notaries,  of  fiscal 
agents,  where  business  was  transacted  by  means  of 
privileges,  dispensations,  safe-conducts;  ...  a  Eu- 
ropean mart  for  priests  of  all  countries  hunting  for 
benefices.  .  .  .  The  pomp  of  the  local  divine  serv- 
ice has  disappeared,  submerged  under  a  flood  of 
business,  of  suits,  of  pardons,  of  indulgences,  of  abso- 
lutions; orders  are  sent  out  to  all  parts  of  Europe, 
even  to  Asia;  a  staff  of  several  hundred  persons  has 
become  necessary;  their  allegiance  is  to  the  Curia; 
their  ambition,  to  climb  a  step  higher  in  their  corpora- 
tion; their  objective,  to  make  business  pay,  to  increase 
taxes,  to  raise  the  profits.  .  .  ."  ^  In  1123  Callixtus 
II  summoned  in  his  own  name  a  council  of  the 
Church;  and  by  presiding  over  its  sessions  marked  the 
beginning  of  that  Papal  control  over  the  councils  of 
the  Church  that  was  to  find  its  logical  conclusion  at 
the  Council  of  the  Vatican  in  the  year  1870.  And 
while  the  Curia  explored  the  Decretals  and  affirmed 
Papal  authority,  the  newborn  universities  were  study- 
^  DoIIinger,  Papsihum. 


210        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

ing  theology,  turning  to  philosophy,  slowly  build- 
ing up  the  doctrines  of  the  new  age,  while  the  feu- 
dal soldier  was  beginning  to  crusade  in  the  East, 
opening  a  way  for  commercial  and  intellectual  influ- 
ences that  were  soon  to  leave  their  mark  on  west- 
ern Europe. 

In  the  year  1095  Urban  II,  attended  by  some  three 
hundred  clerics,  held  a  council  of  bishops  at  Pia- 
cenza,  to  receive  an  embassy  from  Constantinople. 
This  embassy  had  come  to  urge  the  pressing  need  of 
the  Eastern  Empire  for  support  against  the  threat 
of  Mohammedan  conquest.  But  the  Pope  and  his 
bishops  showed  little  enthusiasm  at  the  idea  of  a  holy 
war;  they  were  far  more  concerned  to  attack  their 
arch  enemy  the  Emperor  Henry,  and  they  had  little 
sympathy  with  the  Eastern  Church,  with  its  diverg- 
ent ritual  and  dogma,  its  severance  from  Rome  and 
latent  claim  for  Christian  supremacy. 

Urban  then  visited  France.  In  the  cruder  and  more 
enthusiastic  West  he  found  a  strong  vein  of  sympathy 
with  the  Christians  of  the  East,  a  vein  still  not  quite 
exhausted  at  this  day.  Monks,  people,  soldiers,  all 
in  their  varying  moods,  responded  to  the  call  of  a 
great  religious  enterprise.  Urban  needed  their  support. 
He  was  bent  on  a  difficult  course,  for  in  that  very 
summer  he  issued  a  decree  of  excommunication 
against  Philip  I  of  France  for  contracting  an  adul- 
terous marriage.  So  in  November,  at  a  council  held 
at  Clermont,  Urban  followed  up  his  attack  on  the 
king  of  France  by  preaching  a  holy  war  for  the  de- 
livery of  the  Holy  Sepulchre  from  the  infidels.  The 


AFTER  THE  MILLENNIUM  211 

response  was  immediate.  The  superstition  and  fa- 
naticism of  centuries  were  instantly  caught  up  in  a 
vivid  formula,  and  the  imagination  of  Europe  sud- 
denly went  wild  as  barons,  monks,  beggars,  even 
children,  put  on  the  sign  of  the  cross  and  vowed  they 
would  deliver  Jerusalem  from  bondage.  It  was  to 
take  nearly  two  centuries  of  wretched  failure  to  dispel 
one  of  the  most  widespread  and  splendid  illusions 
of  the  Western  world. 

The  process  of  disillusion  was  marked  by  incidents 
of  the  most  striking  character.  The  enterprise  was  so 
fantastic  that  a  modern  historian,  von  Sybel,  has  said 
of  the  First  Crusade:  "It  was  much  as  if  a  large  army 
were  now  to  embark  in  balloons  in  order  to  conquer 
an  island  between  the  earth  and  the  moon  which  was 
also  expected  to  contain  the  earthly  Paradise."  But 
apart  from  their  follies,  their  successes,  and  their 
reverses,  in  all  directions  the  crusades  bore  fruit. 
They  developed  the  ritualistic  or  chivalrous  side  of 
feudalism.  They  fed  legend,  and  from  legend  the  bud- 
ding vernacular  literature  of  Europe.   They  showed 
monstrous  sides  in  their  brutality,  and  mixed  credu- 
lousness  and  impiety,  yet  they  stimulated  the  seaborne 
trade  of  the  Mediterranean.  And  they  added  a  charm 
of  the  romantic  and  mysterious  to  the  severity  of  the 
cardinal  Christian  virtues. 

Lives  were  lost  by  the  half  million,  and  horrible 
massacres  stained  the  Christian  arms.  But  fortu- 
nately these  are  not  the  facts  that  immediately  con- 
cern us,  for  the  Church  itself  must  receive  all  our 
attention.  It  may  be  noted,  therefore,  that  Peter  the 


2U        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

Hermit  preached  the  First,  and  Bernard  of  Clairvaux 
the  Second  Crusade.  And  with  Bernard  and  the 
middle  of  the  twelfth  century  we  are  faced  by  yet 
another  phase  in  the  history  of  the  Church. 

With  Bernard  we  reach  the  struggle  between  in- 
tellectual freedom  and  intellectual  tyranny,  the 
great  struggle  through  which  the  Europe  we  know 
gradually  evolved  itself  out  of  the  Middle  Ages.  The 
schools  had  become  important  institutions  by  the 
beginning  of  the  twelfth  century,  and  scholasticism 
was  in  its  full  tide.  Scholasticism  is  perhaps  best  de- 
fined as  the  sum  of  the  theological  and  philosophical 
ideas  evolved  by  the  Middle  Ages  in  the  attempt  to 
conciliate  Christian  dogma  with  general  knowledge. 
And  the  effort  of  scholasticism  in  this  direction  was 
summarized  in  the  great  controversy  of  the  period,  that 
of  Realism  and  Nominalism.  The  Realists  approached 
all  phenomena  from  the  starting-point  that  general 
or  universal  ideas  were  real  things,  while  their  oppon- 
ents declared  that  they  were  only  convenient  names 
or  formulas.  The  instant  this  conflict  touched  Christ- 
ian dogma,  it  raised  capital  questions,  as  for  instance 
in  the  matter  of  the  Trinity,  the  Communion,  and  the 
other  mysteries.  And  the  Nominalists  were  of  ne- 
cessity the  party  of  flexible  interpretation,  and  there- 
fore more  under  the  influence  of  change,  of  new  ideas, 
of  all  that  makes  for  unorthodoxy,  reform,  heresy. 

In  this  contest  of  ideas  we  need  not  pause  until  the 
name  of  Abelard  is  reached.  He  was  the  eldest  son 
of  a  nobleman  and  gave  up  his  inheritance  for  the 
sake  of  study.  He  worked.  He  was  endowed  with  the 


AFTER  THE  MILLENNIUM  213 

golden  gift  of  eloquence.  He  travelled  from  school  to 
school,  as  his  father  might  have  from  castle  to  castle, 
disputing  against  the  masters,  tilting  hard  in  oratori- 
cal tourney  against  the  Realists.  His  reputation  grew. 
He  proceeded  to  Paris,  settling  there  about  the  year 
1113. 

Abelard  was  soon  the  most  conspicuous  figure 
among  the  schoolmen  of  Paris.  Men  and  women 
flocked  to  his  teaching.  Under  this  human  stimulus, 
and  at  a  moment  of  such  vital  activity,  his  voice  took 
on  new  accents,  sought  and  found  fresh  modes  of  ex- 
pression. He  became  modern;  and  in  his  love  letters 
to  Heloise  gave  Europe  the  first  masterpiece  of  its 
modern  thought.  He  created  alarm  and  jealousy,  and 
was  persecuted  for  his  amours  with  Heloise.  In  1120 
he  wrote  his  Introduction  to  theology,  and  in  the  fol- 
lowing year  a  council  held  at  Soissons  condemned  it 
to  the  flames  and  its  author  to  prison.  But  his  voice 
could  not  be  stilled.  He  preached,  directly  against 
the  Curia  and  Roman  formalism,  that  the  thought 
was  of  the  essence  of  the  deed.  He  began  textual 
criticism.  And  finally,  in  1139,  Bernard  of  Clairvaux 
denounced  him  as  a  heretic,  and  secured  his  condem- 
nation to  prison  and  perpetual  silence. 

Curiously  enough  Bernard,  who  had  defeated  the 
first  champion  of  free  enquiry,  had  himself  trodden  a 
very  similar  path.  He  had  criticized  severely  the 
conduct  of  unworthy  popes,  and  of  cardinals  whom 
he  described  as  satraps,  and  had  won  so  great  an  au- 
thority that  in  1130  he  became  the  arbiter  of  the 
Church  and  seated  Innocent  II  on  the  Papal  throne. 


214        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

Bernard's  Pope  came  into  violent  conflict  with  a 
disciple  of  Abelard,  Arnold  of  Brescia.  Arnold  was  as 
bold,  perhaps  bolder  than  his  master,  but  with  him 
criticism  and  unrest  found  a  political  expression.  He 
became  a  leader  of  revolt  at  Brescia,  was  summoned 
to  Rome  in  1139  and  sentenced  to  banishment  and 
silence,  —  silence  the  characteristic  remedy  of  Ber- 
nard and  obscurantism,  the  torturing  penalty  of 
conscience  and  emotion  awake  and  straining  for 
life,  silence  as  it  veils  the  deep  look  of  the  Florentine 
monk  that  Fra  Angelico  painted,  cloaked  in  black, 
with  sombre  face  and  tortured  eyes,  his  lips  sealed 
by  an  inscrutable  and  menacing  forefinger. 

Arnold  fled,  and  found  refuge  in  Switzerland. 
Even  Rome  stirred  under  the  impulse  of  the  times. 
In  1143  the  city  revolted  against  the  Pope,  a  repub- 
lic was  proclaimed,  and  Arnold  was  summoned  to  its 
helm.  The  Republic  declared  against  the  temporal 
power  of  the  Popes  on  general  as  well  as  on  particular 
grounds,  —  but  the  arguments  can  be  better  dealt  with 
in  connection  with  a  somewhat  similar  set  of  circum- 
stances that  arose  seven  centuries  later.  Arnold's 
republic  was  a  precursor  of  those  of  Rienzi  and 
of  Mazzini;  it  was  an  imitator  of  the  republic  of  the 
ancient  Romans  in  its  forms  and  ceremonial. 

In  1155,  with  the  Englishman  Nicholas Brakespeare 
Pope  under  the  style  of  Hadrian  IV,  the  power  of 
Arnold  was  broken.  The  most  powerful  weapon  yet 
forged  by  the  Papal  artificers  smote  the  rebellious  city, 
for  Rome  was  placed  under  an  interdict.  This  was 
the  wholesale  application  to  an  entire  community  of 


AFTER  THE  MILLENNIUM  215 

the  same  sort  of  process  as  that  which  Hildebrand 
had  meted  out  to  Henry.  The  services  of  the  Church 
suddenly  ceased.  No  baptism  and  no  funeral,  no 
marriage  and  no  mass  could  take  place  in  Rome  un- 
der the  usual  rites.  The  doors  of  its  churches  were 
nailed  up;  its  inhabitants  were  vowed  to  spiritual 
death.  This  was  more  than  Arnold's  waning  power 
could  resist.  He  fled;  he  was  captured;  then  sentenced 
and  executed  out  of  hand. 

The  restoration  of  Papal  power  in  Rome  had  been 
largely  helped  by  the  Emperor  Frederick  Barbarossa. 
But  as  soon  as  the  Pope  was  securely  reinstalled  his 
pretensions  rose  at  once  to  the  full  height  measured 
by  Hildebrand,  and  the  momentary  truce  between 
Guelph  and  Ghibelline  was  over.  In  the  struggle 
that  followed,  it  was  Frederick  who  came  out 
worsted;  and  in  the  year  1190  he  came  to  a  miserable 
end  while  leading  a  German  contingent  in  the  Third 
Crusade.  Eight  years  later.  Innocent  III  was 
elected  Pope,  and  rapidly  drove  the  Papacy  to  its 
highest  pitch  of  power. 

The  favourite  weapon  of  Innocent  was  excommuni- 
cation. He  excommunicated  Frederick  II  for  not 
taking  the  Cross,  for  not  starting  for  the  Holy  Land, 
for  starting  at  the  wrong  moment,  for  his  conduct 
while  there,  for  signing  an  advantageous  peace.  He 
was  not  content  with  excommunicating  the  Emperor, 
but  excommunicated  the  kings  of  France  and  of  Eng- 
land. And  it  need  hardly  be  pointed  out  that  even  a 
spiritual  weapon  employed  to  excess  must  in  time  lose 
its  edge.  He  diverted  the  Fourth  Crusade  from  Jeru- 


216         THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

salem  to  Constantinople,  and  after  the  sack  of  that 
ancient  city,  he  forced  on  the  Emperor  Alexius  the 
reunion  of  the  Greek  Church  as  the  price  of  his 
throne.  He  asserted  feudal  overlordship  in  Naples 
and  Sicily,  obtained  almost  as  strong  a  hold  over 
northern  Italy,  threatened  to  depose  King  John  of 
England,  and  generally  displayed  a  redoubtable  activ- 
ity. One  phase  of  that  activity  brings  us  into  con- 
tact with  one  of  the  greatest  figures  of  the  Middle 
Ages  and  must  therefore  delay  us  a  moment. 

Francis  of  Assisi  was  born  in  118'2.  His  youth  was 
characteristic  of  one  aspect  of  the  life  of  his  times. 
The  increasing  settlement,  growth,  and  economic 
movement  of  Europe  had  produced  an  upper  class 
based  on  wealth,  and  intent  on  its  obvious  reward, 
that  is  pleasure.  This  was  markedly  the  case  among 
the  Italian  cities,  and  Francis  of  Assisi,  as  a  young 
man  of  fortune,  revelled  and  dissipated  until,  after 
some  sobering  incidents,  he  was  seized  by  a  reaction 
and  found  religion.  He  suddenly  took  to  humility, 
poverty,  and  good  works;  and  the  rest  of  his  life  was 
devoted  to  what  may  best  be  described  as  the  creation 
of  the  slumming  and  settlement  work  of  the  Middle 
Ages.  His  personal  magnetism  was  great  and  his  ex- 
ample was  followed,  so  that  by  1219  he  had  5000 
followers.  Innocent,  after  some  hesitation,  incorpor- 
ated these  new  monks  as  the  Franciscan  Order,  and 
sent  them  forth  to  beg  their  living,  to  mingle  with 
the  poor,  to  do  good  works,  and  to  preach  salvation 
through  Rome. 

The  last  years  of  St.  Francis  were  notable.    He 


AFTER  THE  MILLENNIUM  217 

journeyed  to  Jerusalem  to  visit  the  Holy  Sepulchre 
which  the  Pope  had  placed  under  the  custody  of  his 
monks,  an  arrangement  that  holds  good  to  the  pre- 
sent day.  His  return  to  Italy  was  marked  by  a  rapid 
decline  of  his  health,  and  by  many  of  the  portents 
dear  to  the  ecclesiastical  biographer.  But  the  miracles 
that  dogged  the  footsteps  of  Francis  are  worthy  of 
special  notice,  and  cannot  be  dismissed  altogether; 
the  manner  of   their  relation  was  both  important 
and  interesting.    For  the  writings  of  St.   Francis, 
hymns,  sermons,  and  other  works,  and  those  of  the 
enthusiastic  disciples  who  related  his  life,  are  the  first 
title  deeds  of  the  Italian  tongue.     Here  is  a  new 
language,  a  new  literature,  marked  by  all  the  attri- 
butes of  youth,  freshness,  boundless  faith,  a  new  view 
of  life  and  of  humankind. 

As  to  the  miracles  of  St.  Francis  this  much  may  be 
said.  It  seems  clear  that  he  practised  an  extreme 
asceticism,  and  that  for  many  months  before  his  end 
he  was  in  an  abnormal  nervous  condition.  That  being 
so,  there  is  no  real  diflSculty  in  accepting  the  chief 
miracle  connected  with  his  name,  that  of  his  having 
received  the  stigmata,  that  is,  the  marks  of  the  nails 
of  the  cross  of  Jesus.  Stigmata  have  been  suggested 
to  a  hypnotic  subject  in  a  hospital,  to  say  nothing 
of  the  almost  numberless  cases  that  can  be  quoted 
in  religious,  and  even  police  records,  besides  that  of 
St.  Francis.  The  miracle  is,  in  fact,  possible,  though 
on  the  whole  it  is  perhaps  safer  to  doubt  it. 

The  best  reason  for  this  doubt  lies  not  in  any  sup- 
posed impossibility  of  the  fact,  but  in  the  nature  of 


218        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

the  record  of  the  other  miracles  attributed  to  St. 
Francis.  They  are,  on  the  whole,  of  an  almost  incon- 
ceivably childish  and  trivial  character,  and  can  obvi- 
ously be  dismissed  in  their  supernatural  significance. 
Yet,  with  all  their  childishness  and  triviality, 
clothed  in  their  sweet  and  simple  words,  they  have 
arrested  the  mind,  moved  the  imagination  of  man- 
kind for  many  generations.  And  their  magic  is  pre- 
cisely that  of  little  children,  playing  at  fairies  and 
goblins,  speaking  words  that  reason  rejects  with 
tones,  and  imaginings,  and  aspirations  that  make  the 
heart  throb.  The  whole  secret  is  there.  And  in  pierc- 
ing it  we  pierce  the  greatest  secret  of  the  mediaeval 
Church.  Christianity  is  for  one  brief  moment  reborn. 
The  primitive  faith  of  the  man  of  Galilee,  his  gospel 
of  the  poor,  his  humanity  and  humility,  are  echoed 
by  the  man  of  Assisi;  and  yet  between  the  two,  be- 
tween the  Aramaean  and  the  Italian,  lay  the  gulf  in 
which  the  decadent  philosophizing  of  the  Greeks  had 
for  so  long  fermented  with  the  administrative  pre- 
occupation of  the  Latins. 

The  Franciscan  Order  was  soon  followed  by  others, 
Dominicans,  Augustinians.  Their  monks  became  a 
new  battle  array  fighting  the  cause  of  the  Christian 
Commonwealth  of  Rome.  The  friars,  as  the  mendi- 
cants were  known,  invaded  France,  England,  Ger- 
many. They  fastened  on  the  schools,  formed  guilds 
of  teachers,  and  colleges,  and  vigorously  pushed  on 
the  growth  of  the  universities.  Between  1257  and 
1283  the  Sorbonne,  Merton,  and  Peterhouse  were 
founded. 


AFTER  THE  MILLENNIUM  219 

This  has  carried  us  a  good  deal  beyond  Innocent 
HI,  all  of  whose  achievements  are  not  yet  related. 
In  1201  the  Fourth  Crusade  was  launched  against 
Constantinople;  three  years  later  Simon  de  Montfort 
and  the  barons  of  the  West  were  let  loose  on  the 
south  of  France  to  extirpate  various  heresies  that 
had  taken  root  among  the  Alpine  valleys  and  along 
the  Mediterranean  coast  to  the  Pyrenees  and  the 
Atlantic.  Under  the  sign  of  the  cross  fire  and  sword 
laid  low  the  new-sprung  civilization  of  the  South.  Its 
budding  literature,  its  lordly  houses,  its  independent 
thought  touched  with  oriental  ideas,  were  wiped  out 
of  existence.    Its  cities  were  sacked  and  burned  with 
the  cruel  ferocity  that  so  often  accompanies  a  rooted 
religious  conviction.  Thus  with  interdict  and  excom- 
munication, with  crusade  to  the  east  and  crusade  to 
the  west,  did  Innocent  fulminate  from  Rome  the 
opponents  of  the  Papal  supremacy. 

Afterthedeath  of  Innocent,  in  1216,  the  momentum 
acquired  by  the  Papacy  served  to  carry  it  through 
the  century.  The  mediaeval  Church  had  reared  its 
complex  fabric  on  the  chaos  of  the  Dark  Ages  and 
had  almost  attained  its  ambition.  Its  wealth  was 
fabulous;  its  moral  hold  immense;  yet  in  reality  the 
strain  was  already  telling  at  both  these  points,  while 
scepticism  was  raising  a  doubting  head.  In  England 
the  famous  Statute  of  Mortmain  was  passed  in  1279, 
prohibiting  all  further  grants  of  land  to  the  Church.' 
The  king  of  France  was  not  so  well  placed,  and 
the  attempt  of  Philip  the  Fair  to  tax  ecclesiastical 
property    was    met   by    the    famous    bull    Clericis 


220        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

laicos  forbidding  it.  A  bitter  struggle  followed. 
Finally,  in  1303,  it  culminated  in  the  issue  by  Boni- 
face VIII  of  the  bull  Unam  Sanctam,  affirming  the 
spiritual  supremacy  over  the  temporal :  "Whoever  re- 
sists this  power  thus  ordained  by  God,  resists  the 
ordination  of  God,  unless,  like  the  Manichsean,  he 
claims  that  there  are  two  beginnings.  This  we  con- 
sider false  and  heretical,  since  according  to  the  testi- 
mony of  Moses,  God  created  the  heavens  and  the 
earth  not  in  the  beginnings  but  in  the  beginning. 
Indeed  we  declare,  announce,  and  define  that  it  is 
altogether  necessary  to  salvation  for  every  human 
creature  to  be  subject  to  the  Roman  pontiff." 

But  the  time  for  this  sort  of  pronouncement  was 
already  past;  the  Papal  sword  had  been  blunted  by 
too  long  use.  Philip  turned  against  the  Pope.  Two 
of  his  knights,  at  the  head  of  a  body  of  retainers, 
plucked  Boniface  from  the  Papal  chair  and  carried 
him  off  a  prisoner.  Heaven  and  Europe  were  not 
perceptibly  moved  by  this  outrage.  The  French  king 
took  possession  of  Rome  itself,  and  after  the  death 
of  Boniface  a  few  months  later,  procured  the  elec- 
tion of  one  of  his  own  subjects  to  the  Papacy  as 
Clement  V.  Four  years  later,  in  1309,  Clement  re- 
moved from  Rome  to  Avignon,  and  the  Popes  rap- 
idly sank  to  a  position  not  much  higher  than  that  of 
chaplain  of  the  king  of  France. 

And  so,  by  Philip's  vigorous  buffet,  the  soldier  had 
suddenly  put  down  the  priest,  and  a  rough  equili- 
brium had  been  restored.  For  a  while  we  shall  see 
the  Papacy  depressed,  then  later  coming  to  a  new 


AFTER  THE  MILLENNIUM  221 

period  of  vigour,  blossoming  into  Renaissance  splen- 
dour, only  to  meet  another  crisis,  that  of  the  Refor- 
mation. In  tracing  the  history  of  the  Church  through 
these  movements,  we  shall  have  occasion  to  look  back 
at  several  matters  that  have  not  received  all  the  at- 
tention they  should  in  this  chapter. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

DANTE,  PETRARCH,  AND  BORGIA 

Just  as  the  corporations  of  working  monks  or  the 
ambitious  churchmen  of  high  degree  were  twisting 
the  simple  and  humble  forms  of  the  Romanesque  and 
the  Norman  styles  into  the  high  pointed  arches  and 
flying  buttresses  of  the  lofty  Gothic,  Thomas  Aquinas 
was  building  up  the  theology  of  the  Church  with  an 
intricate  arabesque  of  Aristotelian  ideas.  His  life  be- 
gan in  1226,  and  ended  in  1274,  the  very  year  in  which 
Dante  first  beheld  Beatrice;  and  his  work  may  be 
thought  of,  in  one  sense,  as  the  last  great  construct- 
ive effort  of  the  Latin  tongue  and  the  Latin  mind. 
For  he  added  a  little  to  the  great  theocratic  concep- 
tion of  Augustine  and  to  the  great  legal  conception  of 
Justinian. 

A  new  world  was  stirring  as  Thomas  Aquinas 
pursued  his  studies,  at  Monte  Cassino,  at  Naples,  at 
Cologne,  at  Paris.  One  of  his  teachers,  Albertus 
Magnus,  had  extended  erudition  even  beyond  the 
bounds  of  human  knowledge,  it  was  thought.  Roger 
Bacon's  experiments  in  physics  were  enabling  him  to 
foretell  the  inventions  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
.The  magnifying  glass,  gunpowder,  the  compass  were 
coming  into  use,  and  with  them  the  shock  of  ideas 
that  came  from  new  languages  and  extending  travel. 
Even  in  the  schools  novelty  was  in  the  air.  Students 


DANTE,  PETRARCH,  AND  BORGIA      223 

travelled  to  the  great  Moorish  universities  of  Toledo 
and  Cordova;  the  works  of  the  great  Arabian  doctors, 
Avicenna  and  Averrhoes,  were  translated  into  Latin. 
Aquinas  took  what  the  East  offered,  not  only  from 
the  Arabian  commentators  and  translators  of  Aris- 
totle, but  from  the  sources  opened  by  the  Latin  con- 
quest of  Constantinople,  whence  a  thin  stream  of 
Greek  manuscripts  had  begun  to  flow  towards  the 
West.  "Theology,"  he  declared,  "may  borrow  from 
philosophy,  not  for  her  needs,  but  to  make  clearer  the 
dogmas  she  calls  on  us  to  believe. "  From  this  start- 
ing-point he  built  up  his  Summa  Totius  Theologioe,  a 
compendium  so  masterly  as  to  remain  to  this  day 
the  main  fabric  of  Roman  theological  science.  In  it 
dogma  and  philosophy  met  as  in  a  crucible  artfully 
heated  to  precisely  the  right  temperature  and  be- 
came permanently  wedded,  Latin  and  Greek,  pagan 
and  Christian.    In  other  words,  the  Church  which 
had  started  from  decadent  Greek  thought  had  now 
taken  a  step  backward  and  blended  her  system  with 
the  thought  of  Greece  of  the  golden  age  of  Plato  and 
Aristotle.   Yet  even  this  last  reinforcing  of  the  doc- 
trinal position  of  Rome  was  not  sufficient  to  enable 
her  to  keep  down  very  long  the  tide  now  rapidly 
rising. 

The  new  languages  were  growing  with  irresistible 
force  and  extraordinary  rapidity.  While  the  hymns 
and  legends  of  St.  Francis  were  marvellous  propa- 
gants  of  a  merely  popular  literature,  higher  intellect- 
ual levels  were  fast  being  reached.  About  the  time 
of  Thomas  Aquinas'  death  Brunetti  set  to  work  to 


224        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

translate  the  Ethics  of  Aristotle  into  Italian,  and  not 
long  after  that  Dante,  after  beginning  a  poem  on  the 
future  life  in  Latin,  changed  his  mind,  took  to  his 
own  Florentine  dialect  and  produced  the  Divina 
Commedia. 

The  date  at  which  the  action  of  this  poem  is  set  is 
the  year  1300;  and  it  is  marvellous,  almost  incredible, 
to  consider  how  swiftly  the  new  Europe  had  moved 
away  from  its  Latinism  to  reach  this  point.  Here, 
rising  in  one  magnificent  burst  from  the  litter  of  so 
many  centuries,  Italian  had  put  forth  a  flower  so  per- 
fect that  in  the  six  hundred  years  that  have  gone  by 
since  Dante's  day  nothing  has  been  produced  to  rival 
it.  Literature  had  spanned  the  full  arch  of  national 
life;  philosophers  and  poets,  as  well  as  peasants,  could 
think  now  in  their  own  vernacular.  And  that  being 
so  it  is  important  to  see  what  they  would  find  in 
Dante's  poem : 

"O  voi  ch'  avette  gl'  intelleti  sani 
Mirate  la  dottrina  che  s'  asconde 
Sotto  '1  velame  dei  versi  strani. " 

Dante,  then,  viewing  him  historically,  is  the  flag 
bearer  of  a  new  tongue,  a  new  mode;  he  has  flung  him- 
self free  from  the  Latin  as  a  vehicle  of  thought.  Yet 
the  ideas  with  which  his  Divine  Comedy  is  impreg- 
nated are  far  from  being  as  novel  as  his  method.  On 
the  contrary,  they  do  little  else  than  echo  those  of 
Aquinas.  It  may  be  that  he  inclines  more  towards 
Plato  than  did  the  master  of  theologians,  and  less  to- 
wards Aristotle,  but  viewed  from  so  wide  an  angle  as 
that  at  which  we  stand,  this  difference  is  not  worth 


DANTE,  PETRARCH,  AND  BORGIA      225 

dwelling  on.  Dante's  theology  and  philosophy  are 
orthodox,  and  there  is  only  one  detail  in  which  he 
heralds,  though  in  the  slightest  sense,  the  coming  age 
of  revolt;  as  a  Ghibelline,  a  believer  in  the  equality 
of  Pope  and  Emperor,  he  criticizes  the  action  of  the 
Papacy.  As  a  representative  of  public  opinion,  he 
proves  that  if  Philip  the  Fair  could  strike  down  Boni- 
face VIII,  it  was  largely  because  the  violent  action 
of  the  Popes  had  at  last  alienated  popular  sup- 
port. 

The  great  work  of  Dante  therefore,  was  the  part 
he  played  in  creating  a  new  language  which  provided 
for  the  first  time  a  natural  channel  through  which 
the  ideas  that  lay  at  the  base  of  the  Church  could 
flow  down  among  the  increasing  mass  of  educated 
and  reflective  men  that  the  improving  conditions  of 
Europe  were  producing.  And  the  wonderful  style 
and  imagery  of  his  lines  served  to  stamp  them  broadly 
and  indelibly  on  the  generations  that  followed  the 
poet.  For  in  less  than  fifty  years  from  his  death  chairs 
had  already  been  founded  in  several  Italian  univer- 
sities for  the  study  of  his  works. 

Incidentally  another  topic  is  suggested  by  Dante's 
name,  for  in  him  is  to  be  found  at  the  highest  that 
doctrine  of  the  gradation  of  punishment  associated 
with  the  idea  of  Purgatory.  Whether  Purgatory  is 
properly  to  be  described  as  an  original  Christian  doc- 
trine may  safely  be  left  to  the  combats  of  doctrinal 
theology.  The  idea,  however,  may  be  found  full- 
fledged  in  the  mythological  literature  of  the  Ancients, 
and  it  was  thence  that  it  found  its  way  into  Christian- 


226        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

ity.  By  the  time  of  Gregory  I  it  was  well  established. 
But  its  greatest  significance  was  reached  a  little  later, 
when  the  Church  began  to  develop  the  pains  and  penal- 
ties of  the  future  life  into  a  regular  system  of  moral 
and  political  terrorism  and  of  finance.  In  the  later 
developments  that  came  just  before  the  Reformation, 
the  financial  side  of  the  doctrine  of  Purgatory  over- 
shadowed all  else.  Masses  to  release  souls  from  its 
tortures  formed  one  of  the  great  sources  of  ecclesi- 
astical revenue.  But  this  subject  will  be  dealt  with 
fully  later;  for  the  moment  we  return  to  Dante  and 
his  successors. 

Another  great  name  follows  those  of  Aquinas  and 
Dante  in  immediate  succession,  and  once  more  an 
amazingly  rapid  transition  must  be  recorded.  Pe- 
trarch was  born  in  1304,  seventeen  years  before 
Dante's  death.  Like  Dante  he  hesitated  between 
Latin  and  Italian.  To  some  extent  he  used  the  older 
medium,  and  he  believed  that  his  best  work  was 
thus  accomplished.  Posterity  has  judged  otherwise; 
even  Petrarch  could  not  resuscitate  the  fast  expir- 
ing Latin,  and  it  is  by  his  Italian  verse  that  he  lays 
claim  to  immortality. 

With  his  Italian  works  we  find  two  things  in  Petrarch 
that  differentiate  him  from  Dante,  each  of  them  very 
important  when  gauging  the  transformation  of  Eu- 
rope then  proceeding.  One  is  that  whereas  Dante 
was  escaping  from  Latin  to  use  the  new  vernacular 
mode  of  expression,  Petrarch,  with  the  vernacular 
mode  ready  at  hand,  but  strongly  swayed  by  the 
desire  to  employ  it  to  advantage  by  copying  good 


DANTE,  PETRARCH,  AND  BORGIA      227 

models,  deliberately  turned  back  to  antiquity;  and 
this  is  why  he  is  the  forerunner  of  the  Renaissance. 
The  other  is  that  whereas  Dante,  with  all  the  newness 
and  vitality  of  his  language,  is  only  giving  forth 
the  ideas  of  the  mediaeval  philosophy,  with  Petrarch, 
notwithstanding  his  imitation  of  the  old  models,  we 
have  before  us  the  modern  man,  an  isolated  soul 
struggling  with  conscience  and  contradictions,  suffer- 
ing pain  and  attaining  joy,  analyzing  the  working  of 
his  mind,  preoccupied  with  love  and  life.  With  Pe- 
trarch's contemporary,  Boccaccio,  who  was  deeply 
versed  in  Greek  as  well  as  in  Latin,  this  modernism 
becomes  full-fledged  with  the  Decameron. 

Another  friend  of  Petrarch,  Nicola  di  Rienzi,  will 
carry  us  back  to  more  immediate  views  of  the  pro- 
gress of  the  Church.  He  was  born  at  Rome  in  the 
year  1313,  four  years  after  the  removal  of  the  Papacy 
to  Avignon,  and  as  a  young  man  not  only  took  to  the 
new  literary  studies  but  entered  politics.  He  headed 
a  Guelph  deputation  of  citizens  to  pray  Clement  VI 
to  leave  Avignon  for  Rome.  The  Pope  declined,  but 
for  a  while  supported  Rienzi,  who,  thus  strengthened, 
rapidly  attained  supreme  power  in  the  city.  With 
the  help  of  the  democratic  party  he  was  proclaimed 
Tribune  and  then  Dictator  of  a  Holy  Roman  Repub- 
lic. Like  his  friend  Petrarch,  —  crowned  Poet  Laure- 
ate on  the  Capitoline  Hill,  —  he  looked  to  antiquity 
for  his  models,  and  his  vaulting  ambition  dreamed  of 
a  new  Roman  state  that  should  embrace  the  whole 
Italian  peninsula.  He  assembled  two  hundred  Ital- 
ian deputies  at  the  Lateran  in  August,  1347,  and  soon 


228         THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

afterwards  inflicted  a  signal  defeat  on  the  Roman  no- 
bles. These  successes  ruined  him.  He  was  not  great 
enough  in  mind  or  in  character  to  support  prosperity. 
He  became  insolent  and  proved  empty.  His  friends 
turned  against  him ;  and  after  vicissitudes  that  do  not 
concern  us,  he  was  massacred  by  the  Roman  mob  in 
the  year  1354. 

The  struggle  at  Rome,  the  possible  creation  of  a 
democratic  state,  served  to  show  how  far  the  Papacy 
had  dropped  since  Boniface  had  voiced  its  claims. 
Nor  was  this  the  only  symptom  of  religious  change. 
From  1347  to  1350  Europe  was  ravaged  by  a  pesti- 
lence, apparently  bubonic  plague.  The  loss  of  life,  and 
the  nervous  impression,  were  very  great.  Boccaccio 
gives  us  a  glimpse  of  such  things  in  his  Decameron ; 
Froissart  declares  that  one  third  of  the  population 
of  France  was  swept  away,  while  other  chroniclers 
go  so  far  as  to  assert  that  ninety  per  cent  perished ; 
in  England  it  is  well  established  that  about  one 
half  of  the  benefices  of  the  Church  became  vacant, 
which  points  to  a  great  mortality  in  the  ranks  of  the 
clergy.  Whatever  the  precise  facts,  the  shock  was 
great,  and  its  results  striking,  especially  in  economic, 
social,  and  religious  adjustments.  A  wave  of  mys- 
tical fanaticism  immediately  followed.  In  the  Low 
Countries  especially,  fraternities  arose,  of  which  the 
most  extreme  pursued  humility,  repentance,  and 
mortification  in  an  extreme  form.  Processions  were 
formed  of  men  wearing  red  crosses  in  their  hats, 
chanting  lugubrious  litanies,  stripped  to  the  waist, 
and  plying  whips  on  one  another's  shoulders. 


DANTE,  PETRARCH,  AND  BORGIA      229 

In  England,  whose  monarchs  were  plunged  in  their 
century-long  struggle  against  France,  the  removal  of 
the  Papacy  to  Avignon  tended  to  break  the  ancient 
connection.  The  Pope  now  appeared  to  be  a  French- 
man, an  enemy,  and  Parliament  passed  various  stat- 
utes, notably  that  of  Proemunire  in  1353,  reducing 
Papal  authority  in  the  matter  of  canon  law  and  of 
presentation  to  benefices.  Meanwhile  a  new  religi- 
osity was  stirring  England.  John  Ball  preached  so- 
cialism to  the  labourers,  and  propounded  the  revolu- 
tionary query,  —  using  a  modern  paraphrase :  When 
Adam  delved  and  Eve  span,  who  was  then  a  gentle- 
man? At  that  same  moment  John  Wy cliff e  was  pur- 
suing his  studies  at  Oxford. 

Wycliffe  (1320-1383)  was  a  theologian,  a  follower 
of  that  great  Ghibelline  doctor,  Marsiglio  of  Padua. 
He  belonged  to  the  same  school  of  thought  that  had 
witnessed  the  fall  of  Boniface  with  equanimity,  hold- 
ing that  the  Church  had  no  right  to  intervene  in  secu- 
lar matters,  but  only  where  morals  and  dogma  were 
at  stake.  Wycliffe's  opinions  grew  bolder,  respond- 
ing to  the  general  movement  of  the  times,  and  from 
1377  to  the  date  of  his  death,  1383,  he  was  the  storm 
centre  of  religion  in  England.  He  became  a  reformer 
in  doctrine,  advancing  an  unorthodox  view  in  the 
matter  of  transubstantiation;  he  declared  that  Papal 
indulgences  were  futile;  he  pronounced  the  Bible  all- 
sufficient.  A  Papal  bull  was  issued,  and  the  bishops 
arraigned  him.  Wycliffe  appeared,  and  under  the 
pressure  of  the  London  mob,  the  bishops  dared  not 
condemn  him.   He  issued  numerous  tracts  and  ser- 


230        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

mons;  and  finally,  in  1380,  started  to  translate  the 
Bible  into  English. 

And  here  we  reach  the  great  point.  The  birth  and 
rapid  rise  of  the  new  languages  was  marked  by  the 
same  phenomenon,  a  desire  to  read  the  Scriptures,  to 
get  from  the  formal  and  mysterious  Latin  of  the  priest 
to  the  real  words  of  those  whom  God  had  inspired. 
With  Provengal,  French,  German,  and  English,  after 
making  allowance  for  Innocent's  extermination  of 
the  Albigenses  and  for  the  different  stages  of  the  in- 
dependent development  of  these  languages,  the  pro- 
cess is  very  similar.  As  early  as  the  close  of  the 
twelfth  century  Waldo,  a  Lyonnese  merchant  from 
w^hom  the  Waldensians  took  their  name,  had  caused 
portions  of  the  Scriptures  and  Fathers  to  be  trans- 
lated. The  Waldensians  arose,  not  differing  much 
from  Rome  in  dogma,  but  in  practice  reverting  back 
strongly  in  many  details  to  the  customs  of  the  primi- 
tive Church. 

It  was  at  them,  as  well  as  at  the  Albigenses  and  the 
Cathari,  that  Innocent  III  had  struck.  Heresy  had 
always  been  a  capital  offence,  for  Constantine  and 
Justinian  had  in  this  respect  continued  the  tradition 
of  their  pagan  predecessors;  so  that  Innocent,  when 
he  sent  a  special  commission  to  the  south  of  France 
to  extirpate  heresy,  was  merely  amplifying  methods 
previously  used.  In  1248  Innocent  IV  created  a  per- 
manent tribunal  of  inquisition  of  which  the  operations 
were  placed  in  charge  of  the  recently  established 
Order  of  St.  Dominic.  In  Spain  a  similar  body  was 
already  in  existence  for  dealing  with  non-converted 


DANTE,  PETRARCH,  AND  BORGIA       231 

Moors.  In  England,  though  no  inquisition  was 
established,  a  similar  outburst  of  heresy  to  that 
which  marked  the  close  of  the  fourteenth  century 
in  many  parts  of  France,  led  to  the  persecution  of 
the  Wycliffites  or  Lollards,  and  to  the  passing  of  the 
famous  Act,  De  Eoeretico  Comhurendo,  in  1401. 

The  Popes  continued  at  Avignon  from  1309  through 
the  fourteenth  century.  They  were  mostly  French- 
men, subservient  to  the  king  of  France,  careless  of  all 
save  leading  their  lives  in  pomp,  luxury,  and  indul- 
gence. For  a  while  Avignon  was  a  centre  of  culture, 
but  this  one  redeeming  feature  soon  passed.  Pe- 
trarch, the  spoiled  favourite  of  the  Papal  Court, 
eventually  turned  from  it  with  loathing.  No  inci- 
dent, save  that  already  recorded  in  connection  with 
the  name  of  Rienzi,  need  detain  us  until  the  year 
1378;  then  a  development  even  worse  than  the  captiv- 
ity of  Avignon  ensued,  for  rival  Popes  were  elected 
at  Avignon  and  Rome,  and  by  this  schism  the  Papacy 
became  weaker  than  before. 

The  schism  lasted  until  1417,  and  meanwhile  the 
situation  of  the  Church  became  worse.  The  tendency 
towards  dislocation  grew  greater  and  greater.  Could 
the  Roman  City  of  God  continue  to  exist  in  the  new 
Europe.?  Could  the  old  ideas  and  the  new  be  com- 
bined.? But  Romanism  alone  meant  unity  based  on 
the  tradition  of  all  the  ages,  it  meant  a  system,  a  ma- 
chme,  andallthe  enthusiasm  and  driving  power  that 
the  large  and  efficient  machine  inevitably  commands. 
And  it  was  natural  enough  that  in  all  parts  of  Europe 
the  vast  majority  of  clerics  should  feel  that  the  great 


232        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

institution  they  represented  was  sinking  for  one  reason 
chiefly,  the  lack  of  the  great  central  force  and  prestige 
which  Rome  as  a  capital  could  give.  Heresy  was  gain- 
ing ground.  The  Lollards  were  increasing  in  England ; 
so  were  the  Waldensians  in  France,  in  spite  of  every 
persecution.  The  universities  were  losing  much  of 
their  ecclesiastical  rigorism.  And  now,  in  1408,  John 
Hus,  a  professor  at  the  University  of  Prag  and  an 
admirer  of  Wycliffe,  began  to  preach  loudly  against 
clerical  abuses.  It  was  time  something  were  done,  and 
so,  in  1409,  a  Council  of  the  Church  was  brought 
together  at  Pisa. 

The  Council  of  Pisa  was  not  able  to  formulate  an 
adequate  remedy.  It  found  nothing  better  to  do  than 
to  call  on  the  Popes  of  Avignon  and  of  Rome  to  abdi- 
cate, and,  without  awaiting  their  action,  it  elected  a 
new  Pope,  Alexander  V.  Unfortunately  neither  the 
French  nor  the  Italian  Pope  could  bring  himself  to 
the  point  of  committing  theocratical  harikari,  so  in 
the  result  the  Church  had  merely  attained  pontifical 
trinity  without  achieving  hierarchical  unity. 

The  first  important  acts  of  Alexander  V  were  to  con- 
demn Wycliffe's  writings  to  be  burned  as  heretical, 
and  to  support  the  Archbishop  of  Prag  in  an  inquisi- 
tion into  the  teaching  of  Hus,  now  Rector  of  his  Uni- 
versity. Hus  waxed  bolder.  The  Archbishop  excom- 
municated him.  Serious  riots  broke  out;  and,  in  1411, 
an  interdict  was  laid  on  the  city.  Eventually  Hus 
had  to  leave  Prag,  though  he  commanded,  both 
within  it  and  without,  the  allegiance  of  a  large  and  in- 
fluential body  of  supporters.  The  Church  chose  this 


DANTE,  PETRARCH,  AND  BORGIA       233 

moment  for  a  new  and  more  successful  effort  to  close 
her  ranks. 

John  XXIII,  successor  of  Alexander  V,  summoned 
another  council;  it  met  at  Constance  (1414-1418), 
where  over  thirty  cardinals,  two  hundred  bishops,  and 
eighty  thousand  visitors  witnessed  what  was  perhaps 
the  greatest  assembly  in  the  records  of  the  Church 
between  Nicaea  in  325  and  the  Vatican  in  1870. 

We  may  note  first  that  its  conditions  were  inter- 
national, and  that  the  Italian  bishops  were  not  able 
to  dominate  it  with  their  numbers,  as  the  council 
adopted  the  plan  of  four  votes,  one  for  each  nation: 
Italian,  French,  English,  German.  One  other  pre- 
liminary deserves  more  than  passing  notice:  on  the 
motion  of  Gerson,  the  learned  chancellor  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Paris,  the  council  proclaimed  its  superior- 
ity over  the  Pope,  a  decision  that  deserves  some  con- 
sideration. 

In  one  sense  history  could  justify  the  declaration 
moved  by  Gerson;  in  another  it  could  not.  The  first 
(Ecumenic  Council,  that  of  Nicsea,  had  been  sum- 
moned by  the  authority  of  the  Emperor,  and  the 
bishop  of  Rome  had  held  no  special  authority,  no 
special^  rank.  With  subsequent  councils,  and  as  the 
centuries  slipped  by,  the  Popes  had,  however,  slowly 
acquired  a  special  position.  They  had  claimed  a  supe- 
riority over  the  councils;  they  had  presided  over  some 
councils,  and  had  convened  others.  Councils  had 
delegated  special  powers  to  the  Popes,  while  they  had 
always  displayed  a  tendency  to  usurp  an  authority 
which  had  been  very  real  during  the  period  that  passed 


234         THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

between  Gregory  VII  and  Boniface  VIII.  Yet  many 
theologians  considered,  especially  since  the  supine 
epoch  of  Avignon,  that  the  supreme  authority  of  the 
Church  did  and  should  by  right  reside  in  the  council. 
The  early  history  of  the  Church  supported  this  view, 
and  recent  history,  together  with  the  existing  situa- 
tion, lent  it  point. 

With  many  the  practical  argument  weighed  more 
than  the  theological.  Of  the  three  immediate  ob- 
jects of  the  council,  one  was  to  get  rid  of  the  schism, 
and  the  favoured  plan  for  effecting  this  was  to  re- 
move all  three  Popes,  after  which  a  new  and  undis- 
puted one  could  be  elected.  To  effect  this,  it  was 
clear  that  the  council  must  dominate  the  Popes  in  pos- 
session, and  in  fact  this  proved  a  difficult  matter.  It 
was  only  after  many  incidents  and  negotiations  that 
the  road  was  ultimately  cleared  for  a  sole  Pope,  Mar- 
tin V. 

There  were  two  other  chief  matters,  closely  re- 
lated, that  the  Council  of  Constance  was  concerned 
with,  heresy  and  reform.  The  great  mass  of  in- 
telligent and  reasonable  churchmen,  especially  the 
French  and  Germans,  were  anxious  to  take  up  these 
matters  together.  They  wanted  unity,  that  is  con- 
formity; but  they  recognised  the  presence  of  grave 
abuses  which  they  were  anxious  to  remedy.  As  it 
happened,  they  were  not  able  to  take  up  the  two  ques- 
tions together;  that  of  heresy  was  inevitably  pushed 
to  the  front  by  the  urgency  of  the  situation  created 
by  Hus  in  Bohemia.  The  action  of  Alexander  V  was 
confirmed  by  the  condemnation  of  the  positions  taken 


DANTE,  PETRARCH,  AND  BORGIA       235 

by  Wy cliff e  in  the  matter  of  transubstantiation,  con- 
fession, and  absolution.  This  accomplished,  John  Hus 
was  summoned  before  the  council. 

In  the  sense  in  which  this  book  is  written  it  will  not 
do  to  attempt  to  differentiate  the  case  of  John  Hus 
from  that  of  the  other  victims  of  Roman  intolerance. 
From  the  Jews  and  Christians  roasted  by  pagan 
Rome  to  illuminate  the  gardens  of  Nero,  to  the  re- 
formers and  Protestants  roasted  or  assassinated  by 
Christian  Rome  to  maintain  a  hierarchy  and  discipline 
founded  on  dogma,  the  difference  is  not  great.  The 
phenomenon  is  essentially  the  same.  The  mode  of 
thought  that  works  at  the  back  of  the  Latin  tongue  is 
exclusive,  inelastic,  uniform,  autocratic.  Law,  order, 
dominion,  conformity,  these  are  the  square  bounds 
within  which  humanity  must  be  parked.  Rome  may 
be  first  pagan,  then  Christian,  yet  her  instincts  are 
still  the  same.  In  the  case  of  John  Hus  there  is  a 
long  story  of  negotiation,  of  safe  conducts,  of  double- 
dealing,  of  exciting  debates  and  incidents.  And  at 
last,  after  many  vicissitudes  that  cannot  be  related, 
he  was  seized,  tried,  condemned,  led  to  the  stake,  and 
burned  for  heresy.  The  council  had  triumphantly 
sealed  in  treachery,  blood  and  flames  the  pact  of 
Christian  unity. 

This  occurred  in  July,  1415;  and  it  was  followed  by 
the  outbreak  of  the  terrible  Hussite  war  that  tore 
Bohemia  and  the  neighbouring  countries  for  nearly 
twenty  years.  The  council,  meanwhile,  was  address- 
ing itself  to  other  questions,  and  to  one  of  them,  the 
last  we  need  deal  with,  most  unsuccessfully.   Reform 


236        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

was  demanded  by  the  best  section  of  the  Church,  was 
resisted  by  that  other  section  that  could  see  nothing 
more  important  than  the  enjoyment  of  benefices  and 
the  perpetuation  of  abuses.  The  struggle  between 
these  two  parties  was  sharp  and  protracted.  The 
election  of  Martin  was  forced  on  before  the  question 
of  reform  had  been  disposed  of,  and  finally  the  better 
party  had  to  be  content  with  a  condition  that  the 
Pope  should  inaugurate  reforms  after  his  election. 
This  was  really  a  renunciation  of  the  first  position  of 
the  council  that  its  authority  was  superior  to  that  of 
the  Pope;  it  might  be  superior  in  theory,  it  could  not 
be  in  practice,  the  whole  current  of  history  was  set- 
ting the  other  way. 

And  now  the  Papacy  had  a  head  once  more,  and 
Rome  was  again  the  centre  of  the  Christian  world; 
at  this  very  moment  the  eastern  rival,  after  resist- 
ing for  so  long,  was  on  the  point  of  expiring  before 
a  new  wave  of  Mohammedan  conquest.  In  1453, 
only  a  few  years  after  the  restoration  of  the  Papacy, 
Constantinople  fell  to  the  Turks,  an  event  of  much 
consequence  to  western  Europe.  It  had  two  great 
results,  and  might  have  had  a  third.  It  brought  the 
threat  of  Mohammedan  conquest  to  Europe  once 
more,  through  the  valley  of  the  Danube  towards  Ger- 
many, along  the  Adriatic  coasts  towards  Italy.  It 
sent  the  learning  and  culture  of  the  East  to  strengthen 
the  rising  intellectualism  of  Europe.  It  gave  to  the 
Papacy  a  unique  opportunity,  which  it  failed  to  take, 
for  uniting  Christendom  east  and  west,  Latin,  Greek, 


DANTE,  PETRARCH,  AND  BORGIA       237 

and  Teutonic.  Conversely  stated,  the  three  outstand- 
ing aspects  of  the  period  that  follows  are  these:  the 
great  political  shock  marked  by  the  formation  of 
the  vast  Hapsburg  Spanish  Empire  of  Charles  V;  the 
Renaissance;  the  dilatory  and  incapable  policy  of  the 
Popes.  Of  these  three  let  us  first  glance  at  the  Re- 
naissance. 

The  Renaissance  has  a  superficial  aspect,  easy  to 
seize,  and  another,  not  so  easy,  that  lies  below  the 
surface.   It  is  like  the  youth  who  suddenly  emerges 
from  a  period  of  depression  and  gloom,  finds  himself, 
walks  erect  and  joyous,  his  face  aglow  with  colour 
and  vitality.   So  with  the  outward  aspect  of  the  Re- 
naissance, with  its  cult  of  beauty,  its  prodigal  out- 
pouring of  imagination  in  painting,  in  sculpture,  in 
poetry.  But  all  this  exuberance  proceeded  from  an 
inward  cause  more  difficult  to  realize,  and  more  im- 
portant.  Perhaps  it  may  be  best  understood  if  we 
turn  back  for  a  moment  to  Petrarch  and  to  Rienzi. 
^  When  relating  the  fall  of  paganism  after  the  conver- 
sion of  Constantine,  it  was  said  that:  "Christianity 
had  triumphed  through  the  revolt  of  the  individual 
conscience;  it  was  now  to  attempt  the  dangerous  task 
of  creating  a  collective  one."    Hildebrand,  Innocent, 
Boniface,  had  struggled  hard  to  impose  this  gradually 
evolved  system  of  a  collective  conscience  on  Europe 
in  the  form  of  a  great  semi-feudal  theocracy.  In  that 
supreme  effort  they  had  failed,  yet  the  underlying 
idea  that  the  individual's  relation  to  conscience  was 
not  a  personal  matter,  but  one  regulated  by  the  sys- 
tem of  the  Church   remained,  for  there  was  in  fact 


238         THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

nothing  to  substitute  for  it.  Conscience  could  only 
be  what  the  canon  law,  the  priest,  and  the  confessional 
declared  it  to  be.  The  effort  of  the  Renaissance  was 
the  regaining  of  self-consciousness,  of  personal  con- 
science; and  it  is  this  that  may,  in  a  rough  sort  of 
manner,  be  connected  back  with  Rienzi  and  with 
Petrarch. 

Rienzi's  scheme  for  a  new  Roman  state,  of  which 
the  traditions  should  be  sought  in  antiquity  and  the 
Republic,  not  in  medisevalism  and  the  Church,  was 
eagerly  caught  up  and  eloquently  echoed  by  Petrarch. 
His  excited  imagination  evoked  a  golden  age  and  a 
new  humanity.  And  as  Guelphs,  both  the  Tribune 
and  the  poet  associated  this  with  the  driving-out  of 
the  Germans  from  Italy,  and  the  defeat  of  feudalism. 
The  priest  and  the  baron  were  both  to  make  way  for 
the  emancipated  citizen.^  The  Church  and  the  Em- 
pire would  no  longer  guide  his  footsteps,  but  a  tra- 
dition older  and  more  independent. 

Notwithstanding  the  momentary  revival  of  Im- 
perial and  Papal  prestige  at  the  Council  of  Constance, 
these  ideas  flowed  on  with  ever  increasing  strength 
from  Petrarch's  time.  And  they  were  reinforced  by 
others  closely  akin.  The  same  independence  which 
Rienzi  manifested  in  the  political  field,  asserted  itself 
in  that  of  pure  conscience.  Abelard  had  declared  for 
the  criticism  of  those  sacred  texts  on  which  Rome 

^  Aquinas  had  almost  preached  this  doctrine  a  century  earlier: 
"Ab  uno  omnes  originem  habemus.  Non  legitur  Deus  fecisse 
unum  hominem  argenteum  ex  quo  nobiles,  unum  luteum  ex  quo 
ignobiles."  Aquinas,  quot.  by  Ozanam,  Op.  Col.  Vol.  vi,  p.  303. 


DANTE,  PETRARCH,  AND  BORGIA       239 

based  her  power.  Wycliffe,  Hus,  had  protested 
against  the  use  of  absolution  as  an  instrument  of 
discipline  and  authority  and  not  for  the  real  heahng 
of  torn  conscience.  And  all  this  meant  introspection"^ 
self -consciousness. 

At  the  same  moment,  inextricably  bound  up  with 
it,  came  the  new  learning,  a  movement  which  can  be 
traced  back  to  almost  any  point,  to  the  year  1000, 
to  Charlemagne,  or  even  to  Gregory  I,  if  need  be.  To 
take  it  in  a  reasonable  sense,  however,  we  can  think 
of  it  as  deriving  chiefly  from  the  birth  of  the  new 
European  languages.    From   the  time  of  Petrarch, 
Italy  delves  rapidly  into  the  buried  intellectual  trea- 
sures of  Rome  and  Greece  to  find  food  for  the  extra- 
ordinary activity  that  possesses  her,  an  activity  in 
large  part  due  to  economic  influences  too  remotely 
connected  with  the  present  subject  to  be  dwelt  on. 
It  was  at  this  point  that  the  exodus  from  captured 
Constantinople  made  itself  specially  felt.    The  ad- 
vent of  many  Greek  scholars  and  many  Greek  manu- 
scripts at  such  a  moment  was  a  great  and  decisive 
factor  in  the  movement. 

The  man  of  the  Renaissance  is  not  easy  to  describe, 
because  the  awakening  of  conscience  and  stimulation  of 
the  intellect  then  proceeding  could  not,  in  the  nature 
of  things,  produce  such  even  results  as  had  the  growth 
of  medisevalism.  That  had  been  centripetal,  while 
the  new  movement  was  of  necessity  centrifugal.  The 
man  of  the  Renaissance  is  always  creative  and  self- 
conscious,  but  his  effort  ranges  over  every  possibility 
of  good  or  evil.   In  the  field  of  religion  his  new-found 


240        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

consciousness  turns  him  from  dogma  to  piety,  and  by 
the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century  the  monk  a  Kem- 
pis  has  produced  his  Imitation  of  Christy  of  which 
over  eighty  editions  were  printed  between  1470  and 
1500.  The  prodigious  success  of  this  book  at  this  mo- 
ment, appealing  as  it  did  to  minds  inclined  towards 
asceticism  and  mystical  piety,  but  not  towards  for- 
mal theology  or  theocratic  organization,  is  one  of 
the  most  significant  signs  of  the  times. 

In  another  direction  the  man  of  the  Renaissance 
tends  to  pure  rationalism.  High  dignitaries  of  the 
Church  satirize  it  unmercifully.  Papal  secretaries 
detect  with  amused  acumen  the  forgeries  of  their 
predecessors,  and  while  warning  their  masters  of  the 
fraudulent  basis  of  their  power,  devote  themselves 
with  sceptical  zeal  to  its  maintenance.  Learning, 
which  had  formerly  been  the  monopoly  of  ecclesi- 
astically controlled  universities,  now  slips  into  lay 
hands,  and  the  barrier  between  sacred  and  profane, 
between  science  and  wit,  breaks  down.  The  Greek  ex- 
ample turns  men  more  and  more  to  vitalize  litera- 
ture by  a  proportioned  sense  of  the  veracious  and  the 
beautiful.  Theological  discussion  and  the  observation 
of  life  are  lightly  blended  by  the  satire  of  Erasmus 
in  one  of  the  most  popular  books  of  the  day. 

Yet  all  this  is  far  from  exhausting  all  that  might 
be  said  about  the. man  of  the  Renaissance.  One  of 
the  most  accessible  of  ancient  authors  was  Seneca, 
the  favourite  of  Erasmus,  and  from  him  could  be 
drawn  to  the  full  the  counsels  of  introspection, 
meditation,  and  conscience  of  the  Stoic  philosophy. 


DANTE,  PETRARCH,  AND  BORGIA       241 

Conscience  with  many  was  translated  into  terms  of 
intellectual  labour,  the  constant,  and  critical,  and 
aesthetic  examination  of  natural  phenomena,  the  hu- 
man form,  the  celestial  movements,  the  problems  of 
physics.  From  this  came  a  wonderful  host  of  Italians, 
with  pupils  and  followers  in  western  Europe,  crafts- 
men, artists,  engineers,  soldiers,  statesmen,  all  scien- 
tific in  a  way  hitherto  unknown,  and  more  than  scien- 
tific because  burning  with  the  fire  of  the  new  birth 
of  Europe.  Some  remained  religious,  but  for  the 
most  part  the  intellectual  overcame  the  emotional  in 
them,  and  after  a  short  burst  of  glorious  activity  their 
effort  became  purely  utilitarian,  and  thence  rapidly 
fell  to  futility.  Their  names  are  too  familiar  to  re- 
quire enumeration,  but  what  needs  to  be  recalled  is 
that  the  same  great  push  is  behind  the  scientific 
statesmen  and  soldiers  like  Pescara,  Macchiavelli, 
Caesar  Borgia,  or  Parma,  as  behind  the  great  artists 
and  technicians,  Leonardo,  Cellini,  or  Michael  Angelo. 
The  Renaissance  may  be  said  to  have  penetrated 
within  Rome,  even  within  the  ranks  of  her  clergy, 
as  early  as  the  days  of  Rienzi.  It  took  possession  of 
the  Papal  throne  in  1447  on  the  accession  of  Nicholas 
V.  From  that  date  to  1492,  the  year  Columbus  dis- 
covered America  and  Borgia  was  elected  Pope,  the 
affairs  of  the  Papacy  can  be  briefly  summarized. 
Blind  to  the  dangers  of  the  course  they  had  set, 
the  Popes  displayed  intellectual  instead  of  religious 
faith,  and  religious  instead  of  intellectual  scepticism. 
They  quickly  made  of  Rome  the  capital  of  the  Re- 
naissance, and,  at  the  head  of  the  world's  movement 


242        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

as  of  the  world's  religion,  they  never  realized  that 
they  were  rapidly  nearing  the  edge  of  a  formidable 
chasm.  In  an  atmosphere  of  sordid  financial  and  po- 
litical intrigue,  they  thought  little  of  right  conduct 
and  everything  of  glorifying  the  capital  of  Christ- 
endom in  letters,  architecture,  and  art.  Among  these 
Renaissance  Popes  the  culminating  figure  was  that 
of  Roderigo  Borgia,  who  after  some  hard  bargaining 
with  the  cardinals  assumed  the  Papal  tiara  in  1492 
as  Alexander  VI. 

The  pontificate  of  Alexander  was  marked  by  the 
invasion  of  Italy  by  Charles  VIII  of  France  and  by 
his  momentary  alliance  with  the  Pope.  The  French 
ambitions  had  the  two  extremities  of  the  peninsula, 
Milan  and  Naples,  in  view;  and  the  Pope's  son  Cae- 
sar, as  gonfalonier  of  the  Church,  set  to  building  up 
a  great  state  in  central  Italy.  He  came  nearer  suc- 
cess than  did  Charles  VIII.  Drastic  in  method, 
he  supported  statecraft  with  treachery,  generalship 
with  assassination,  courageous  and  large  policies  with 
poison.  Excelling  in  logic  he  rejected  conscience 
wholly,  where  most  men  rejected  all  but  heteroge- 
neous and  inconvenient  shreds  of  conscience.  For  a 
space  he  triumphed  by  dint  of  resourcefulness,  of 
courage  and  intellect,  ruthlessly  applied.  While  Cae- 
sar astonished  even  Italy  by  his  methods,  and  ap- 
peared to  Macchiavelli  to  gather  up  all  the  qualities 
of  the  practically  eflScient  prince,  his  father  completed 
the  picture  in  other  aspects.  Amid  the  fast-growing 
splendour  and  opulence  of  Rome,  he  recalled  by  his 
life  and  example  some  of  his  predecessors  in  the  title 


DANTE,  PETRARCH,  AND  BORGIA       243 

of  Pontifex  Maximus  whose  memory  was  most  deeply 
execrated.  Surrounded  by  troops  of  courtesans  he 
made  the  Vatican  the  scene  of  orgies  that  would  have 
done  credit  to  the  imagination  of  Caligula,  Commo- 
dus,  or  Heliogabalus.  He  tore  from  the  Church  her 
last  veil  of  religiosity,  and  exposed  her  to  Europe 
naked  and  foul,  a  by- word  and  a  reproach. 

In  1503  the  Borgia  regime  closed.  Julius  II  reigned 
ten  years,  and  was  followed  by  Leo  X,  the  Pope 
of  the  Reformation.  Julius  was  an  improvement  on 
Alexander,  and  yet  of  the  same  general  type.  His 
ambitions  were  secular,  and  he  took  the  field  at  the 
head  of  the  Papal  armies  to  join  in  the  scramble  for 
territorial  conquest  when  he  was  not  developing  the 
splendours  and  fastuousness  of  his  capital.  He  laid 
the  foundations  of  the  new  St.  Peter's,  and  inau- 
gurated the  great  financial  campaigns  that  were  to 
make  of  it  the  most  gorgeous  monument  of  the  Christ- 
ian faith,  and  the  starting-point  of  Luther's  revolt. 

Of  finance,  and  various  other  diseases  of  the  Church 
not  yet  touched  on,  there  will  be  much  to  say  in  the 
next  chapter.  Let  us  close  this  one  by  a  few  words 
concerning  certain  political  developments  that  oc- 
curred in  western  Europe  during  the  first  quarter  of 
the  momentous  sixteenth  century.  The  House  of 
Hapsburg  was  now  in  possession  of  the  imperial 
throne,  which  it  was  to  retain  almost  uninterruptedly 
until  1806.  By  marrying  the  heiress  of  Burgundy, 
Maximilian  of  Hapsburg  acquired  that  great  inherit- 
ance; this  was  further  augmented  by  the  marriage  of 
his  son  to  the  heiress  of  Castile  and  Aragon.   Charles, 


244         THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

issue  of  that  marriage,  who  became  Emperor  in  1519 
and  master  of  the  newly  discovered  treasures  of 
Mexico  and  Peru,  was  to  hold  the  greatest  power  seen 
in  Europe  between  Charlemagne  and  Napoleon.  On 
either  hand  of  the  vast  dominions  of  Charles  lay  hos- 
tile forces.  Erance,  with  ambitions  of  her  own  in 
Italy  and  towards  the  Rhine,  struggled  hard  not  to 
be  throttled  by  the  huge  Hapsburg  coil  wound  about 
her.  The  Turks,  with  sudden  bursts  of  military  en- 
ergy, threatened  the  heart  of  Germany  itself.  In  1526 
they  defeated  the  Hungarians  in  the  plains  of  Mo- 
hacs,  and  three  years  later  the  Sultan  Suleiman  laid 
siege  to  Vienna.  But  the  death  of  Louis,  king  of 
Hungary,  at  Mohacs,  had  thrown  his  kingdom  into 
the  hands  of  Eerdinand  of  Hapsburg,  and  that  house, 
though  severely  pressed  for  a  century  and  a  half, 
was  destined  eventually  to  drive  the  Turks  into  the 
Balkans  again.  Long  before  1526,  however,  the  Re- 
formation had  broken  out,  and  we  must  now  turn 
back  and  trace  its  course. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE  REFORMATION 

Martin  Luther  was  born  at  Eisenach  in  1483, 
and  took  his  degree  of  Master  of  Arts  at  the  Univer- 
sity of  Erfurt  in  1505;  he  then  turned  to  the  study 
of  theology  and  to  the  practice  of  reUgion.  He  was 
by  nature  devout,  he  studied  and  meditated  pro- 
foundly, and  as  a  young  priest  laid  the  foundations  of 
what  was  later  to  be  his  chief  position,  recalling  that 
of  St.  Paul,  that  the  remission  of  sins  proceeded  from 
the  grace  of  Jesus  Christ.  As  a  teacher  at  the  Uni- 
versity of  Wittenberg  the  vigour  and  freshness  of 
Luther's  expositions  of  doctrine  gained  him  a  wide 
reputation.  The  newly  invented  printing-press  scat- 
tered his  sermons  throughout  Germany,  France,  and 
England;  they  were  widely  understood  as  a  protest 
against  the  existing  discipline  of  the  Church.  For  the 
Church  had  come  to  believe  in  something  very  far 
removed  indeed  from  the  remission  of  sins  by  grace. 

The  remission  of  sins  had,  in  fact,  become  the  finan- 
cial basis  of  a  highly  organized  financial  machine 
that  was  religious  in  little  else  than  its  ancient  name 
—  the  Church.  And  it  was  an  epoch  in  which  the  in- 
creasing complexity  of  civilization  and  the  competi- 
tion in  luxury  and  artistic  splendour  made  money  hard 
to  get.  If  Rome  was  to  support  the  Pope  and  the 
Curia,  if  she  was  to  be  the  capital  of  the  Renaissance, 


246         THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

to  erect  its  most  dazzling  monuments,  to  deck  her- 
self with  its  most  splendid  pictures  and  sculptures, 
vast  sums  of  money  must  be  raised.  And  these  vast 
sums  were  accordingly  extracted  from  a  devout  and 
obedient  public,  by  converting  the  ethical  thunders  of 
Paul  and  of  Augustine,  of  Hildebrand  and  of  Innocent, 
into  the  motive  power  of  a  piece  of  fiscal  machinery. 

Step  by  step  the  Curia  had  set  a  price  on  every 
sin  and  crime  known  to  man.  If  sin  had  been  com- 
mitted it  could  also  be  absolved,  by  paying  com- 
mensurate fees.  For  the  convenience  both  of  sinners 
and  of  collectors,  a  tariff  of  sin  was  codified  and  printed 
at  Rome  in  1471,^  and  its  usefulness,  if  not  its  popu- 
larity, led  to  numerous  editions  following.  From  that 
of  1520,  printed  in  Paris,  we  can  estimate  the  current 
rates  of  sin  remission  by  quoting  a  few  selected  items 
from  the  tariff,  prefacing  this  much,  that  the  gros  was 
one  tenth  of  a  ducat,  that  it  would  pay  for  one  day's 
keep  of  a  man  and  horse,  and  that  each  gros  has  to 
be  multiplied  by  five,  the  number  of  departments 
of  the  Curia  through  the  hands  of  which  the  repentant 
sinner  would  have  to  pass  before  he  obtained  his  clean 
bill  of  spiritual  health. 

Every  sin  was  on  the  tariff  save  heresy  alone,  and 
among  the  relatively  cheap  ones  we  may  note :  — 

Absolution  for  him  who  has  carnal  connection  with  his 

mother,  sister,  or  other  kinswoman 5gr. 

For  him  who  deflowers  a  virgin 6gr. 

For  the  killing  of  a  layman  by  a  layman ^gr- 

1  The  facts  given  here  are  in  part  controversial;  Woker  and 
Dollinger  are  the  authorities  followed. 


THE   REFORMATION  247 

From  among  the  more  expensive  luxuries  of  a  too 
exuberant  life  may  be  noted :  — 

Annulling  or  putting  off  a  vow  of  pilgrimage  to  the  Holy 

Sepulchre  and  other  holy  places Iggr, 

And  among  the  indulgences:  — 

A  general  dispensation  for  life 25gr, 

Dispensations  for  marriage  within  the  prohibited  de- 
grees,—the  most  expensive  luxury  of  all,  and  usually 
indulged  in  by  monarchs  only,  —  were  rated  at  from 
three  hundred  to  six  hundred  ducats,  according  to  cir- 
cumstances. 

This  system  was  marvellously  fruitful ;  for  it  stopped 
at  nothing,  and  humanity  was  still  enthralled,  ignorant 
and  abject.  A  single  monk  returned  to  Rome  from 
an  indulgence  vending  tour  with  27,000  ducats.  The 
Curia  was  prepared  to  sell  anything,  for  it  even  entered 
the  vilest  traffic  open  to  men  by  levying  20,000  ducats 
a  year  from  the  busy  prostitutes  of  Rome.  The  Curia 
itself  became  a  source  of  profit,  for  its  appointments 
were  benefices;  Leo  X,  by  increasing  the  staff  of 
scribes  from  80  to  2150  and  selling  the  appointments, 
raked  in  at  one  swoop  900,000  florins  in  gold. 

The  Papal  revenue  was  not  exclusively  derived 
from  these  sources.  There  were  others,  furnishing 
much  matter  for  friction  with  the  clergy  of  distant 
parts  of  Europe  and  their  sovereigns,  but  on  the 
whole  of  less  importance  for  tracing  the  evolution  of 
the  Church. 

This,  then,  was  what  the  organization  of  a  collect- 
ive conscience  had  come  to,  a  systematized  trading 


248        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

on  human  turpitude,  superstition  and  fear,  in  the 
name  of  an  ethical  code.  Nor  was  this  the  only  point 
at  which  the  Church  lay  open  to  attack.  The  Roman 
system  carried  with  it  a  corollary,  for  sin  condoned 
was  sin  directly  stimulated,  and  the  clergy  had  become 
deeply  tainted  from  the  very  instrument  it  had  been 
made  to  wield.  St.  Francis  and  his  early  followers 
were  doubtless  saints,  but  the  Franciscan  friars  of 
the  period  we  have  now  reached  were  for  the  most 
part  worldly  enough.  The  cleric  was  the  privileged 
possessor  of  benefices  and  means  of  revenue  palpably 
based  on  fraud  and  therefore  demoralizing.  The  life 
led  by  a  great  part  of  the  clergy,  more  especially 
in  the  Latin  parts  of  Europe,  was  a  flagrant  disgrace. 
The  heroes  of  Boccaccio's  most  scandalous  adven- 
tures were  generally  monks.  Popes  gave  the  example 
of  breaking  openly  every  law  of  morals  and  of  de- 
cency. And  yet  the  confessional  penitential  system 
was  never  more  rigidly  enforced,  for  reasons  already 
dealt  with.  The  self-respecting  burgher  of  France 
and  Germany,  already  touched  by  the  new  learning 
and  some  germs  of  free  thought,  supported  with  sup- 
pressed dislike  the  immixtion  of  the  priest  or  monk 
in  his  household.  His  wife,  his  daughter,  were  trained 
to  place  their  intelligence  and  their  emotions  under 
the  dictation  of  an  individual  marked  by  a  tonsure 
and  a  robe  who  was  only  too  often  a  glutton,  a  sot, 
and  a  sexual  pervert.  Monasteries  and  convents  were 
often  enough  the  notorious  homes  of  sloth,  indulgence, 
and  abominable  offences,  all  carefully  protected,  even 
fostered,  by  the  Curia  of  Rome. 


THE  REFORMATION  249 

These  were  the  conditions  and  signs  of  the  times 
when  in  the  year  1516  the  Dominican  friar  Tetzel 
started  on  a  tour  of  Germany  to  sell  a  large  stock  of 
indulgences  of  which  the  proceeds  were  intended  for 
the  building  fund  of  the  new  St.  Peter's,  which  Leo  X 
was  actively  pushing.  For  a  while  Tetzel  drove  a 
prosperous  trade,  but  finally  this  shameless  traflSc  led 
to  an  outburst  of  long  pent-up  indignation.  In  Oc- 
tober, 1517,  Luther  nailed  on  the  door  of  the  church 
of  Wittenberg  the  famous  ninety-five  theses  wherein 
he  denied  the  right  of  the  Pope  to  remit  sins,  and 
with  this  act  it  may  be  said  that  the  Lutheran  Re- 
formation began. 

At  the  moment  when  Luther  nailed  the  flag  of  re- 
volt to  the  church  door  of  Wittenberg,  Europe  was 
ripe  for  reform.  In  a  very  clear  sense  since  the  time 
of  Boniface  VIII,  that  is  for  two  centuries,  and  with 
increasing  force,  the  best  part  of  the  Church  had  de- 
manded a  change.  An  effort  had  been  made  in  that 
direction  at  the  Council  of  Constance  under  the  lead 
of  Gerson.  At  the  Council  of  Basle,  a  few  years  later, 
a  great  struggle  had  taken  place  between  the  reform- 
ing party  and  the  Pope,  which  almost  disrupted  the 
Church  once  more,  but  eventually  produced  no  last- 
ing result.  And  now  the  act  of  Luther  brought  matters 
to  a  head,  for  he  immediately  won  support  even  in 
Italy  or  Spain,  even  among  members  of  the  College 
of  Cardinals;  he  found  imitators  like  Zwingli  at  Zu- 
rich or  Melanchthon ;  and  where  opposition  was  offered 
it  was  at  first  of  a  feeble  character. 

One  of  the  reasons  for  this  was  that  in  its  essentials 


250        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

the  reformation  of  Luther  was  not  doctrinal;  it  was 
aimed  less  at  the  Creed  than  at  the  Curia.  Yet  as  it 
developed  over  the  following  half-century,  disputa- 
tion of  necessity  arose,  and  of  necessity  became  theo- 
logical; while  the  anti-Lutherans,  fighting  on  dog- 
matic ground,  were  conversely  influenced  towards 
higher  standards  of  conduct.  So  that  gradually  the 
reformers  became  schismatic  in  dogma,  while  the  or- 
thodox became  reformers  in  conduct,  and  at  the  end 
of  the  great  struggle  it  was  found  that  both  Pro- 
testants and  Catholics  had  reformed,  and  that  what 
now  divided  them  was  no  longer  the  immediate  cause 
of  the  quarrel,  but  questions  of  dogma  and  the  suprem- 
acy of  the  Pope.  These  divergencies  of  dogma  will 
be  left  on  one  side  for  the  moment,  while  we  trace  the 
events  that  marked  the  early  stages  of  the  conflict. 

Luther  was  promptly  attacked  and,  at  the  Diet 
of  Worms  (1521),  defended  himself  with  impressive 
energy.  The  young  Emperor  Charles  V  took  an  atti- 
tude far  from  uncompromisingly  hostile:  Luther 
through  the  press  rained  blows  on  his  opponents,  and 
among  these  he  reckoned  reformers  like  Zwingli,  or 
men  inclined  for  reform  like  Erasmus,  whose  views 
happened  to  differ  from  his.  He  continued  issuing 
tracts  and  theses.  He  wrote  hymns.  He  translated 
the  Bible  from  the  Greek  into  the  German.  His  vig- 
our in  all  these  things,  as  a  disputant,  as  a  wielder  of 
the  rough  but  deep  and  sincere  German  tongue,  ac- 
complished a  great  work  of  propaganda.  The  masses 
of  Germany,  with  here  and  there  a  great  nobleman, 
were  swept  by  a  tidal  wave  of  religious  emotionalism. 


THE  REFORMATION  251 

In  their  extravagant  zeal  they  pushed  reform  to  a 
point  where  even  Luther  was  left  behind.  Curious 
new  doctrines  arose,  Anabaptism  perhaps  the  most 
extreme.  Popular  revolt  fast  reached  the  peasants, 
and  with  them  tended  towards  an  agrarian  war;  for 
the  effort  became  largely  social  and  for  freedom  from 
feudal  burdens.  In  a  manifesto  which  they  issued  in 
August,  1525,  they  demanded:  the  right  to  elect 
their  own  clergy;  the  apportionment  of  tithes  for  the 
support  of  the  poor;  the  abolition  of  serfdom;  and 
the  suppression  of  a  number  of  feudal  and  clerical 
burdens. 

The  Peasants'  Revolt  failed,  ferociously  repressed 
by  Ferdinand  of  Hapsburg  and  the  German  aristo- 
cracy; and  this  appeared  for  the  moment  to  be  a  con- 
siderable setback  for  the  Lutheran  cause.  But  it  was 
more  than  counterbalanced  before  many  months  had 
elapsed.  In  1526  a  Protestant  league  was  formed  by 
several  of  the  German  states  including  Saxony,  Hesse, 
and  Brandenburg,  while  in  the  following  year  it  ap- 
peared for  a  moment  as  though  Rome  herself  would 
be  overwhelmed. 

The  Popes  had  long  been  trimming  between  France 
and  the  Hapsburgs.  With  the  accession  of  Francis  I, 
in  1515,  the  struggle  for  dominion  in  Italy  entered  a 
violent  phase.  On  the  field  of  Pavia,  in  1525,  Francis 
was  defeated  and  captured,  and  Charles  appeared  to 
triumph.  But  Francis  broke  his  prison  and  his  oaths, 
renewed  the  struggle,  drew  into  it  Italian  powers  fear- 
ful of  the  Hapsburg  ascendancy,— Sforza,  Venice  and 
Pope  Clement  VI.   Charles  had  been  turning  his  ef- 


252        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

forts  since  Pavia  to  the  suppression  of  the  Lutheran 
heresy  in  Germany,  and  the  Pope's  attack  filled  him 
with  anger.  He  collected  a  great  German  army, 
placed  it  under  the  orders  of  Bourbon,  and  sent  it 
into  Italy.  That  army,  as  Charles  knew,  was  full 
of  Lutherans,  and  they  advanced  against  Rome  in  an 
ugly  mood.  Whereas  the  Goths  of  Alaric  regarded 
the  cross  and  the  priest  with  superstitious  awe,  the 
reiters  of  Bourbon  viewed  the  sacred  city  of  Christen- 
dom, according  to  Luther,  as  the.  whore  of  Babylon. 
They  carried  silken  nooses  for  the  cardinals,  and  a 
golden  one  to  hang  the  Pope;  and  when  Bourbon 
stormed  the  walls  at  their  head  and  fell,  they 
thoroughly  avenged  his  death.  The  terrible  sack 
of  Rome  by  the  Germans,  in  May,  1527,  made  a 
tremendous  impression  on  Europe.  The  tales  of 
slaughter  and  of  sacrilege,  of  the  quest  for.  treasure, 
of  torture,  of  destruction,  of  patrician  ladies  turned 
into  the  drabs  of  a  German  camp,  thrilled  humanity, 
and  seemed  to  presage  the  overthrow  of  the  Papacy. 
The  elements  of  schism  were  numerous  in  France  and 
England,  and  all  seemed  to  depend  on  the  decision  of 
the  Emperor  Charles.  He  chose  to  ..stay  his  hand, 
however.  He  granted  peace  to  the  Pope  and  to 
France,  and  by  his  constancy  to  the  old  established 
order  of  Europe  afforded  the  Papacy  breathing  time, 
gave  to  the  Church  an  opportunity  to  reconsider  its 
position,  left  for  the  counter-reformation  a  •  solid 
nucleus  around  which  to  build  up  its  forces. 

The  reader  has  now  before  him  the  starting-point 
that  should  enable   him  to  follow  understandingly 


THE  REFORMATION  253 

the  history  of  the  great  period  of  religious  wars  that 
lasted  until  1648;  for  all  the  rest  is  the  logical  con- 
sequence of  what  we  have  seen.   It  is  not  the  object 
of  this  book  to  fill  in  details;  more  than  this,  its 
method  demands  the  elimination  of  every  detail  that 
does  not  bear  directly  on  the  evolution  of  large  move- 
ments or  ideas.  And  we  have  now  come  to  a  moment 
when  It  would  seem  that  the  reader  can  grasp  the  rest 
of  the  Reformation  movement  to  best  advantage  in 
a  form  condensed  under  the  following  heads:  the 
counter-reformation;    Germany;    France;    England; 
Spain. 

We  will  therefore  first  consider  the  counter-refor- 
mation, neglecting  the  movement  of  reformation  in 
northwestern  Europe  for  the  present.    That  the  Ro- 
man Church  should  set  its  house  in  order  so  as  to  re- 
sist Its  enemies  was  shown  to  be  necessary  and  urgent 
by  the  sack  of  Rome;  the  movement  actually  began 
seven  years  later  with  the  election  to  the  Papacy  of 
Paul  III,  Farnese.   Inclined  to  better  things,  strong 
m  character,  and  alive  to  the  dangers  of  the  situa- 
tion, he  set  to  work  to  surmount  them.  He  gave  the 
cardinal's  hat  to  men  of  a  new  type,  Erasmus,  Regi- 
nald Pole,  Contarini.  The  latter  was  sent  to  Ratis- 
bon  to  confer  with  Melanchthon,  with  a  view  to 
reaching  a  basis  of  settlement.  Both  were  -earnest 
and  conciliatory,  Contarini,  indeed,  going  so  far  as 
to  accept  the  Lutheran  doctrine  of  justification  by 
grace;  but  adverse  influences  were  at  work,  and  the 
reconciliation  could  not  be  effected.  One  party,  in- 
deed, with  Pole  among  its  leaders,  was  prepared  to 


254         THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

follow  Contarini;  and  the  Lutheran  doctrine  of  justi- 
fication acquired  a  great  though  transitory  vogue  in 
Italy.  But  another  party  prevailed,  that  of  the  sombre 
Caraffa,  later  to  be  Paul  IV. 

Caraffa  pointed  to  the  evident  fact  that  the  pol- 
icy of  conciliation  was  a  confession  of  weakness, 
and  that  its  first  result  was  that  the  leaders  of  the 
Italian  clergy  were  already  fast  drifting  towards 
Wittenberg  and  carrying  Rome  along  with  them. 
This  movement  must  clearly  be  stopped,  and  Caraffa 
suggested  the  means,  which  was  to  reorganize  the  In- 
quisition on  the  Spanish  model,  and  with  that  powerful 
engine  to  impose  conformity.^ 

Accordingly,  in  1542,  the  Holy  Office  of  the  In- 
quisition was  set  up  in  Rome,  under  the  direction  of 
the  Pope  and  a  committee  of  cardinals.  It  proceeded 
to  investigate  those  very  floating  opinions  of  the  day 
that  w^ere  setting  men  so  fast  adrift  towards  a  re- 
formed faith.  To  such  opinions  as  appeared  mistaken 
it  promptly  applied  the  old  remedy  of  Nero  and  of 
Justinian  for  non-conformity,  that  is  heresy.  Burn- 
ing at  the  stake  was  decided  on  as  the  most  suitable 
punishment,  not,  however,  without  previous  investi- 
gations; for  it  is  related  that  at  Utrecht  boiling  was 
thought  fitter,  and  was  carried  out,  until  the  bishop 

1  The  Inquisition  of  the  thirteenth  eentury  had  about  com- 
pleted its  work  by  the  end  of  the  fourteenth,  and  from  that  time 
fell  into  disuse.  In  Spain,  however,  the  peculiar  conditions  of 
the  struggle  with  the  Moors  had  resulted  in  the  revival  of  an 
institution  of  which  the  significance  was  local  and  the  power 
used  mainly  for  the  strengthening  of  the  new  Spanish  mon- 
archy. 


THE  REFORMATION  255 

of  that  place  found  himself  unable,  even  in  a  holy 
cause,  to  endure  that  indescribable  spectacle.  Here, 
then,  was  an  agency  at  work  that  was  to  accomplish 
much.  Within  thirty  years  of  its  institution  Italy  was 
purged  of  Protestantism,  and  Paolo  Flaminio's  book 
in  defence  of  the  doctrine  of  justification,  of  which 
sixty  thousand  copies  had  been  printed,  had  entirely 
disappeared.' 

But  Caraffa  did  even  more,  he  discovered  Ignatius 
Loyola  and  started  him  on  his  mission.  This  Basque 
fanatic,  ascetic,  man  of  genius,  swept  in  at  one  glance 
the  critical  situation  of  the  Church  in  regard  to  the 
march  of  civilization.    He  was  given  the  opportun- 
ity to  improve  it,  and  used  it  to  tremendous  effect. 
He  founded  the  Society  of  Jesus,  a  militia  of  the  Pa- 
pacy sworn  to  restore  its  authority.  The  discipline 
of  the  Society  was  absolute,  and  was  elaborately 
framed  on  a  system  of  spying  and  delation.  The 
Jesuit  Fathers  were  prepared  to  undertake  any  and 
every  act  that  might  profit  Rome.   If  the  Roman  case 
required  popular  exposition,  they  trained  a  school  of 
theologians,  unmatched  for  oratorical  power,  to  effect 
this.   If  a  monarch  or  minister  pursued  a  hostile 
policy,  they  pointed  the  dagger  or  pistol  that  brought 
him  to  earth.   They  applied  the  utmost  energy  and 
the  craftiest  methods  to   control  education  and  to 
stamp  Rome  indelibly  on  the  infant  mind  of  whole 
populations.  They  slipped  into  the  confessional  of 
sovereigns,  and  whispered  policies  that  shaped  the 
destiny  of  nations.   They  developed  casuistry  and 
probabilism  so  as  to  be  able  conscientiously  to  de- 


256        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

clare  that  black  was  white  or  white  black.  And  this 
supreme  achievement  of  inverted  conscience  became 
an  even  more  effective  weapon  of  theocratic  warfare 
when  multiplied  by  the  remarkable  numbers  and 
quality  of  the  recruits  that  were  drawn  to  the  ranks 
of  this  stalwart  legion  of  the  Church. 

Loyola's  Order,  informally  started  in  1534,  re- 
ceived Papal  support  from  1539,  and  numbered  one 
thousand  members  in  1556;  by  1590  it  had  become 
the  driving-wheel  of  the  Roman  Church.  Before  that 
date,  however,  we  have  two  other  matters  to  note, 
the  Council  of  Trent,  and  the  succession  of  the  Popes. 

Ever  since  the  schism  that  marked  the  end  of  the 
Avig-non  period  there  had  been  a  strong  push  towards 
holding  councils.  Those  of  Pisa,  Constance,  and 
Basle  have  been  noticed;  others  less  momentous  had 
followed.  The  outbreak  of  the  Reformation  had  stim- 
ulated this  tendency  anew.  At  first  the  reformers 
were  eager  for  a  new  assembly  like  that  of  Constance 
or  Basle,  in  which  they  hoped  to  carry  the  programme 
of  reform  which  had  been  so  prominent  in  previous 
councils.  Moderate  Catholics,  too,  saw  in  this  course 
one  conformable  with  all  the  traditions  of  the  Church, 
and  hoped  it  might  effect  a  reconciliation.  The  con- 
ference of  Contarini  and  Melanchthon  might  indeed 
be  held  to  be  a  step  in  just  this  direction ;  and  Paul  III, 
leaning  in  this  matter  towards  the  moderates,  called 
the  Council  of  Trent  together  in  1545. 

The  council  was  presided  over  by  Papal  legates, 
who  kept  a  close  control  over  its  proceedings.  The 
Protestants  were  not  represented.  The  new  Catho- 


THE  REFORMATION  257 

lie  party,  Caraffa,'the  Jesuits,  wielded  great  influence; 
while  bribery  was  not  neglected  as  a  means  of  secur- 
ing conformity.  And  from  the  first  it  was  clear  that 
the  council  would  not  heal  the  breach  in  the  Church, 
but  would  rather  direct  its  energy  to  strengthening 
the  Roman  Pontiff. 

The  proceedings  of  the  Council  of  Trent  lasted,  on 
and  off,  for  nearly  twenty  years,  from  1545  to  1564, 
and  we  may  now  view  them  chronologically.  In  1546 
the  council  voted  that  tradition,  the  unwritten  word, 
should  be  held  equivalent  to  Scripture;  so  that,  when 
two  hundred  years  later  Pius  IX  declared,  "la  tra- 
dizione  son  io,"  he  was  proving  that  the  Tridentine 
decree  had  really  vested  all  the  authority  of  tradition 
in  the  Pope,  abandoning  the  Bible  to  the  Protest- 
ants. It  was  the  preamble  of  the  logical  conclusion 
arrived  at  by  the  last  oecumenic  council  in  1870. 

One  year  later  the  council  condemned  the  Lutheran 
doctrine  of  justification;  but  having  embarked  on 
dogmatic  discussion  found  the  course  full  of  reefs, 
charted  and  uncharted.  Difficulties  increased.  The 
Emperor  was  displeased  at  some  of  the  council's  de- 
cisions, and  before  the  end  of  the  year  its  proceedings 
were  adjourned  sine  die.  Three  years  later,  Paul  III 
died,  and  his  successor,  Julius  III,  reopened  the  coun- 
cil, its  sessions  on  this  occasion  lasting  but  a  few 
months.  But  with  the  accession  of  Caraffa  to  the 
Papacy  as  Paul  IV,  in  1555,  the  policy  of  violent 
repression  triumphed.  The  pagan  and  debauched 
Catholicism  of  Borgia,  the  moderate  and  humanistic 
Catholicism  of  Erasmus,  hacj  both  been  completely 


258         THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

supplanted  by  the  intolerant  policies  and  magnificent 
discipline  of  the  Jesuits,  redoubtable  champions,  as 
Acton  described  them,  of  an  austere  immorality. 

Paul  IV  concentrated  his  efforts  on  developing  the 
Inquisition.  His  successor,  Pius  IV,  once  more  sum- 
moned the  council  together,  with  no  idea  now  of  heal- 
ing the  breach  of  the  Church,  but  merely  of  increas- 
ing its  fighting  power.  It  assembled  in  May,  1562, 
and  its  decrees  were  solemnly  approved  by  the  Pope 
in  January,  1564.  Discipline  and  organization  were 
the  chief  subject  of  these  decrees.  The  bishops,  the 
monastic  orders,  were  reduced  to  a  closer  supervision; 
the  education  of  the  priesthood  was  regulated;  various 
doctrinal  positions  were  defined;  and  the  council  pub- 
lished an  index  of  prohibited  books.  This  last  matter 
deserves  special  attention. 

We  have  already  seen  how  the  growth  of  the  new 
languages,  together  with  the  economic  and  intellectual 
shock  with  the  East,  had  caused  a  great  movement, 
culminating  in  the  new  learning  of  the  Renaissance. 
The  quest  and  the  reproduction  of  manuscripts  was 
one  of  the  obsessions  of  the  fifteenth  century,  and  out 
of  this  arose,  midway  through  it,  the  printing-press. 
The  current  of  literature  grew,  and  was  further  in- 
creased by  the  religious  controversy,  so  that  by  the 
time  of  the  Reformation  the  press  had  become  a  fun- 
damental factor  in  European  civilization. 

But  the  press  was  an  agent  of  thought,  and  thought 
tended  more  and  more  towards  complexity,  original- 
ity, divergence,  criticism,  enquiry,  observation  of 
fact.   And  from  the  early  moment  when  the  newborn 


THE  REFORMATION  259 

tongues  instinctively  sought  to  learn  the  mysteries 
of  religion  by  drawing  the  Scriptures  out  of  their 
Latin  or  Greek  vestment,  they  had  advanced  far 
in  religious,  historical  and  imaginative  literature. 
Every  day  they  progressed  further,  every  day  the 
religious  conflict  produced  bolder  opinions,  and  the 
Church  soon  discovered  that  the  press  was  its  enemy. 

Bishops,  universities,  took  it  on  themselves  to  con- 
demn books,  to  forbid  them,  to  have  them  publicly 
burned.  Lists  of  such  books  were  published.  Ca- 
raffa  drew  up  the  first  Roman  Index,  and  finally  the 
Tridentine  Index  was  prepared.  From  that  day  to 
this  the  Roman  Church  has  waged  relentless  war 
against  the  press,  a  matter  that  will  be  presently 
dealt  with  from  its  present-day  aspect. 

Armed  with  the  Inquisition,  the  Jesuits,  and  the 
decrees  of  the  Council  of  Trent,  Pius  V,  Gregory  XIII, 
and  Sixtus  V  (1566-1590)  wrought  the  Church  into  a 
fighting  machine  and  delivered  a  tremendous  attack 
on  Protestantism.  But  it  was  an  attack  for  the  sake 
of  discipline  and  not  for  the  sake  of  conscience.  Rome 
had  rejected  turpitude;  she  had  found  austerity;  but 
her  fanaticism  was  fanaticism  for  Rome  and  not  for 
right.  It  was  met  by  a  fanaticism  as  great,  and  with 
a  better,  if  weaker,  cause  behind  it.  After  1590,  dur- 
ing the  last  phase  of  this  struggle,  the  real  leader- 
ship of  the  Church  passed  to  the  Jesuits,  and  the 
men  elected  to  the  Papal  throne  were  of  less  weight. 
By  turning  to  the  states  of  Europe,  we  shall  be  able 
to  trace  what  were  the  efforts  of  Romanism  to  dom- 
inate Protestantism,  and  what  came  of  them. 


%Q0:-      THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

•  .  THe  league  of  Protestant  princes  which  we  saw 
fprmed  in  Germany  proved  successful,  though  not 
until  after  many  vicissitudes.  The  political  combina- 
'tions  changed  more  than  once,  and  the  struggle  be- 
tween Charles  and  his  rebellious  vassals  was  marked 
by  many  fluctuations;  but  in  1555,  a  great  settlement 
was  reached  by  the  Peace  of  Augsburg.  By  this 
treaty  Germany  was  divided  into  Catholic  and  Luth- 
eran states,  according  to  the  faith  professed  by  the 
princes,  and  each  faith  was  exclusive  of  the  other. 
As  seen  from  the  vantage-ground  of  the  present,  it 
was  a  glaring  absurdity,  for  it  was  saying  that  a 
German  might  be  driven  out  of  Cologne  for  Luther- 
anism,  and  out  of  Leipzig  for  Catholicism.  But  in 
this  first  stage  of  a  movement  of  which  the  full  signifi- 
cance was  not  yet  realized,  this  was  not  felt,  being  in 
fact  largely  concealed  by  a  very  important  political 
change  that  went  with  it. 

In  his  revolt  against  the  Roman  See,  Luther  had 
incurred  a  grave  personal  risk;  he  had  therefore 
turned  towards  the  support  which  princes  like  the 
electors  of  Saxony  and  of  Hesse  had  offered  him.  His 
doctrinal  position  had  been  largely  affected  by  this, 
and  he  rapidly  developed  the  theory  of  the  divine 
right  of  kings  from  its  Hebrew  or  Biblical  origin.  The 
result  was  that  in  Lutheranism  the  supremacy  of  the 
lay  sovereign  was  exalted;  and  the  idea  of  the  control 
of  religion  by  the  state,  together  with  the  holding  of  a 
privileged  position  as  exclusive  as  that  of  the  Roman 
Church,  gave  Lutheranism  its  distinctive  character. 

There  were  other  features  of  the  new  German  faith 


THE  REFORMATION  261 

that  require  mention,  and  these  less  distinctively 
Lutheran.  As  it  spread  northward  a  divergence  ap- 
peared between  Germany  and  the  Scandinavian 
countries.  In  the  latter  the  bishops  were  generally 
retained,  in  the  former  not.  The  rule  of  celibacy,  a 
burning  question  of  morals,  discipline,  and  clerical 
influence,  was  abrogated,  Luther  himself  setting  the 
example.  The  divine  service  was  turned  from  Latin 
into  the  vernacular,  and  in  the  mass  the  communi- 
cant was  allowed  to  participate  in  both  kinds. 

The  Peace  of  Augsburg  marked  the  failure  of 
Charles  V.  He  could  not  view  with  equanimity  the  suc- 
cess of  the  Lutheran  princes.  "It  was  an  intolerable 
hypocrisy  to  be  the  friend  of  Protestants  where  they 
were  strong,  and  to  burn  them  where  they  were  weak."^ 
So  in  the  following  year  he  abdicated,  leaving  the 
mixed  inheritance  of  Germany  to  his  brother  Ferdi- 
nand, the  Catholic  inheritance  of  Spain,  Naples,  Milan, 
and  the  Burgundian  provinces  to  his  son  Philip. 

After  Augsburg  there  was  a  momentary  respite  for 
Germany.  The  Emperors  were  inclined  for  compro- 
mise, especially  Maximilian  II  (1564-1576),  under 
whom  the  Catholic  Church  in  Austria  began  to  drop 
into  Lutheran  practices.  The  accession  of  Rudolf 
II,  however,  marked  the  extension  to  Austria  of 
the  full  vigour  of  the  Catholic  reaction.  Energetic 
measures  were  taken  to  tighten  the  relaxed  bonds, 
and  finally  Bohemia,  whose  rebelliousness  dated  back 
to  the  days  of  John  Hus,  rose  in  revolt.  Long-con- 
tinued disorder  culminated  in  war,  and  from  1618  to 
1  Acton,  Modern  Uistory,  p.  128. 


262        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

1648  Germany  was  desolated  by  the  Thirty  Years' 
War.  On  one  side  was  the  Emperor  and  Catholicism ; 
on  the  other,  Lutheranism  with  a  strong  backing  of 
northern  princes,  eventually  supported  by  Gustavus 
Adolphus,  king  of  Sweden,  who  shared  with  Tilly 
and  Wallenstein  the  military  honours  of  a  period  of 
horrors.  The  upshot  was  the  Peace  of  Westphalia, 
that  marked  the  end  of  the  wars  of  religion  in  Ger- 
many. It  changed  little  in  what  had  been  accom- 
plished at  Augsburg;  but  the  Catholics  had  gained  a 
little  ground,  especially  in  the  Hapsburg  possessions, 
while  on  the  other  hand  Calvinism  had  obtained  re- 
cognition. And  this  brings  us  to  the  second  great 
wave  of  the  Reformation. 

John  Calvin,  who  was  born  in  1509,  belonged  there- 
fore to  the  next  generation  after  Luther.  As  vigorous 
as  Loyola,  though  more  intellectual,  he  conceived  the 
idea  that  was  to  be  the  real  foundation  of  Protest- 
antism. This  was  of  a  Church  in  the  form  of  a  social 
organization  of  the  congregation  regulated  by  elders 
cooperating  with  the  priest.  On  this  he  superim- 
posed a  burning  and  intolerant  puritanism.  Calvin 
was  eloquent.  His  system  contained  a  popular  appeal 
that  made  for  growth;  and  it  spread  fast  through 
France,  and  into  Germany  and  the  British  Isles, 
particularly  Scotland. 

In  this  sense,  then,  Calvin  was  ahead  of  his  times, 
was  pushing  on  the  hand  of  history;  in  another  he 
was  no  better  than  his  own  age.  The  intensity  of  the 
period  is  difficult  to  realize.  Men  were  engrossed  in 
questions  of  religion  and  of  morality,  but  were  still 


THE  REFORMATION  263 

under  the  cloud  of  the  Dark  Ages,  a  cloud  faintly 
touched  as  yet  with  the  glow  of  the  new  learning. 
Their  conclusions  were  of  necessity  dogmatic,  that  is 
definite  and  harsh.  They  were  far  more  intolerant  and 
exclusive  than  the  humanizing  Roman  churchmen  of 
the  sceptical,  festheticizing  half-century  that  preceded 
the  Reformation.  An  opposing  opinion  meant  Hell, 
damnation,  and  the  stake.  Personal  conviction  carried 
the  risk  of  the  loss  of  all  things,  family,  fortune,  and 
life  through  torment.  It  was  not  an  age  of  philoso- 
phic doubt  or  of  human  kindness.  As  yet  toleration 
showed  its  head  but  faintly. 

These  things  are  well  illustrated  by  the  incident 
connected  with  the  name  of  Servetus.  This  bold 
thinker  had  retraversed  the  centuries,  and  reached 
the  position  which  Arius  had  fought  for  so  hard  at  the 
time  of  the  Council  of  Nicsea;  in  other  words,  he  was 
unitarian  in  doctrine.  Nothing  could  be  more  hate- 
ful to  the  Inquisition,  or  to  Calvin.  The  unfortunate 
Spaniard  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Inquisition  first; 
but  it  was  Calvin  who  surreptitiously^  supplied  the 
evidence  on  which  that  tribunal  condemned  him  to 
death  by  slow  fire.  Just  before  his  sentence  was  to 
have  been  carried  out,  Servetus  escaped,  and  in  dis- 
guise wandered  into  Geneva.  There  fate  overtook  him, 
and  Calvin  himself,  as  intolerant  and  as  cruel  as  the  In- 
quisition, sent  him  to  the  stake.  The  younger  Socinus, 
who  did  much  to  promote  unitarian  views  in  north- 
eastern Europe,  was  more  fortunate  than  Servetus. 

So  much,  then,  for  Calvin.  In  him  we  have  an 
eloquent  writer,  a  great  innovator  in  Church  organ- 


264        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

ization,  and  for  the  rest  a  bigot  and  a  man  of  the 
Middle  Ages.  Moving  from  Calvin's  Genevan  strong- 
hold to  the  west,  we  shall  find  new  features  of  the 
Reformation,  though  nearly  at  every  point  what 
predominates  is  the  influence  of  Calvin,  dogmatic 
but  chiefly  institutional. 

In  France  the  Reformation  was  preceded  by  the 
concordat  negotiated  in  1516  between  Francis  I 
and  Leo  X.  By  this  treaty  the  king  obtained  con- 
trol of  the  choice  of  bishops,  in  return  for  which  the 
Pope  took  annates,  a  year's' revenue  of  the  benefice, 
and  further  obtained  from  the  king  a  renouncement 
for  France  of  the  position  taken  by  the  Council  of 
Basle  that  the  Pope  was  subordinate  to  the  council. 

Under  Francis  and  his  successors  Calvinism  made 
great  headway  in  France.  There  were  moments  when 
it  appeared  as  though  it  might  reach  the  throne 
itself.  In  1562,  however,  just  as  the  Council  of  Trent 
was  reaching  its  close,  a  great  Catholic  effort  was 
made  to  win  France  back.  The  wars  of  the  Hugue- 
nots followed,  marked  by  the  massacre  of  St.  Bar- 
tholomew in  1572,  by  the  failure  of  the  House  of 
Valois,  the  rise  of  the  House  of  Bourbon,  and  the 
success  of  its  head,  Henry  of  Navarre.  In  1598  his 
edict  of  Nantes  effected  peace  on  a  compromise  basis 
that  gave  the  Huguenots  a  limited  amount  of  relig- 
ious freedom,  though  not  equal  to  that  which  the 
Peace  of  Augsburg  had  secured  to  the  Lutherans. 

It  was  in  the  course  of  the  Huguenot  struggle  in 
France,  and  under  a  somewhat  similar  set  of  circum- 
stances further  north  in  the  Low  Countries,  that 


THE  REFORMATION  265 

we  come  to  a  third  great  stage  of  the  Reformation, 
following  the  revolt  of  Luther  and  the  institutional 
work  of  Calvin;  this  was  the  appearance  of  the  idea 
of  toleration.  And  with  toleration,  it  is  hardly  neces- 
sary to  say,  we  reach  that  element  of  the  Reforma- 
tion which  lies  deepest,  which  will  eventually  carry 
it  beyond  the  bounds  of  mere  religious  controversy, 
which  bears  in  germ  the  thought  of  an  age  to  come, 
an  age  hostile  to  the  four-square,  exclusive,  Grseco- 
Christian  philosophy  and  that  moves  towards  evolu- 
tionary tentative  ideas. 

Toleration,  then,  is  the  note  of  the  moment  when 
Rome  was  closing  her  ranks  at  Trent,  and  this  new 
idea  was  rising  almost  suddenly  from  the  obscure  bed 
so  freely  and  confusedly  littered  for  half  a  century  past* 
by  the  rough-handed  pioneers  of  the  Reformation. 
In  France  it  was  fostered   by  legal  schools  and  a 
scholarship  already  well  developed.  In  political,  re- 
ligious, juristic  thought,  toleration  makes  its  appeal 
as  more  reasonable,  more  just,  more  statesmanlike. 
Henry  IV,  who  like  Constantine  had  changed  his  creed, 
was  above  all  things  the  man  of  wide  political  views  and 
broad  human  sympathies,  somewhat  sceptical  in  re- 
ligion, though  perhaps  more  inclined  to  the  Catholic 
than  to  the  Reformed  position.    His  path  was  full 
of  dangers.    The  Jesuits,  the  Catholic  League,  the 
Catholic  democracy  of  Paris,  were  formidable  foes. 
And  the  agitators  taught  whatever  might  assist  their 
cause,  and  that  meant  the  doctrines  of  violence; 
armed  resistance  to  the  legitimate  king,  the  suprem- 
acy of  the  people,  tyrannicide. 


266        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

Inquisition,  revolution,  assassination,  with  Jesuits 
pulling  the  wires  and  the  Guises  wielding  the  sword, 
was  what  faced  Henry,  while  behind  him  the  earnest 
Huguenots  gave  him  their  blood  and  their  swords. 
And  if  his  courage  and  his  right  did  much  to  place 
him  on  the  throne,  it  will  not  be  too  much  to  say  that 
toleration  did  as  much.  For  he  had  perceived  the 
virtue  of  that  word,  and  he  made  it  his  rule  of  con- 
duct. Could  France  have  retained  the  position  he 
had  so  dearly  and  well  won,  the  whole  course  of  her 
history  might  have  been  changed. 

Beyond  the  narrow  sea  from  France,  England  had 
run  a  curious  race.  The  outbreak  of  the  Reformation 
coincided  with  two  incidents  that  reacted  strongly 
on  it.  The  first  was  the  presence  on  the  throne  of  a 
sovereign  of  despotic  and  centralizing  disposition 
almost  equal  to  that  of  William  of  Normandy.  Henry 
VIII  was  not  only  a  despot  of  the  Renaissance,  but 
he  was  also  in  difficulties  as  to  the  succession  to  the 
throne  for  lack  of  a  male  heir;  and  for  other  reasons 
also  he  wished  to  get  rid  of  his  wife,  Katharine  of 
Aragon.  From  this  arose  negotiations  with  the  Pa- 
pacy at  the  time  of  the  sack  of  Rome,  further  con- 
fused by  international  complications  that  for  a  time 
ranged  Henry  with  Francis  against  Charles  V.  And 
the  result  was  that  not  getting  what  he  wanted  from 
Rome,  which  was  dominated  by  Charles,  Henry 
rapidly  drifted  away  towards  independent  action. 

There  were  indications  long  before  this  epoch  that 
remote  England  might  break  away  from  the  Popes. 


THE  REFORMATION  267 

William  the  Conqueror  had  successfully  resisted  the 
dictation  of  Hildebrand;  later  the  English  Parliament 
had  almost  repudiated  the  French  Popes  of  Avignon; 
while  Wycliffe  had  pointed  the  way  for  Hus  and  left 
behind  him  many  seeds  of  Protestantism. 

These  tendencies  strengthened    the  highly  indi- 
vidual course  of  Henry.   His  irregular  divorce,  the  ir- 
regular marriage  to  Ann  Boleyn,  the  irregular  legiti- 
mation of  their  daughter  Elizabeth,  all  carried  the 
king  to  an  open  breach  with  Rome.  He  proclaimed 
himself  head  of  the  English  Church,  while  condemn- 
ing what  he  declared  to  be  the  heresies  of  Luther;  he 
spoiled  the  monasteries,  but  founded  the  Church  of 
England,  which  many  of  its  members  from  that  day 
to  this  think  of  and  call  a  branch  of  the  Cathohc 
Church,  and  not  without  sundry  good  arguments. 
Henry  had,  in  fact,  though  for  inadequate  motives, 
opened  a  middle  course  between  Rome  and  Witten- 
berg. And  essentially  this  substitution  of  the  na- 
tional king  for  the  Pope  as  head  of  a  national  clergy 
carried  awkwardly  bound  up  with  it  the  new  idea  of 
the  non-moral  state  as  conceived  by  Macchiavelli  and 
rapidly  developed  by  a  new  school  of  jurists  and 
theorists,  the  Politiques  in  France,  soon  to  be  fol- 
lowed by  writers  like  Hobbes  and  Selden  in  England. 

So  long  as  Henry  ruled.  Protestantism  did  not  get 
very  much  beyond  this  in  England,  for  the  king  per- 
mitted no  deviation  from  the  narrow  path  he  had 
marked  out  and  was  ever  ready  with  the  fagot  and 
the  halter.  But  after  his  death,  in  1547,  the  Reform- 
ation worked  fast,  especially  among  the  extremists 


268        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

and  Puritans.  As  in  France,  a  struggle  took  place,  in 
which  Mary,  the  zealous  Catholic,  and  Elizabeth,  the 
lukewarm  Protestant,  played  the  chief  parts.  The 
accession  of  James  Stuart  was  marked  by  an  Act  of 
Conformity  aimed  at  Puritanism;  and  from  that  time 
on  we  have  a  struggle  getting  more  and  more  acute  be- 
tween the  Anglican  Church,  Protestant  in  little  more 
than  name,  and  the  real  reforming  elements.  The 
latter  became  more  and  more  complex,  more  and 
more  zealous,  more  and  more  important,  especially 
after  the  first  quarter  of  the  seventeenth  century. 
They  had  their  brief  hour  of  triumph  under  the  tol- 
erant dictator  Cromwell.  In  their  diversity  and  self- 
government  they  tended  towards  sectarianism,  demo- 
cracy, and  a  split  between  Church  and  State.  And 
their  most  characteristic  expression  may  be  found  in 
Cromwell's  Independents  and  in  the  Scotch  Presby- 
terianism  of  John  Knox. 

This  contemporary  and  disciple  of  Calvin  came  to 
the  front  in  the  period  following  the  death  of  Henry 
VIII,  when  the  Reformation  was  making  great  strides 
in  England.  It  was  in  part  his  influence  in  the  direc- 
tion of  the  Genevan  doctrine  of  the  Eucharist  that 
introduced  the  chief  dogmatic  divergence  in  the  ar- 
ticles of  the  Church  of  England  from  the  Roman 
doctrine.  But  later  he  was  little  more  the  friend  of 
the  Anglican  than  of  the  Roman  Church,  for  he  re- 
jected the  government  of  bishops  and  fought  the 
cause  of  Presbyterianism.  His  views  were  sombre, 
his  courage  undaunted,  his  character  uncompromis- 
ing; and  he  succeeded  in  stamping  his  personality 


THE  REFORMATION  269 

on  the  new  faith  of  Scotland.  One  other  thing  may 
well  be  noted,  that  in  the  struggle  against  Mary 
Stuart,  waged  with  all  the  acrimony  of  the  tribal 
disputes  that  chronically  raged  in  Scotland,  the  oppo- 
sition was  not  only  between  Catholic  and  Protestant, 
but  also,  though  in  a  less  obvious  way,  between  the 
idea  of  the  supreme  monarch  by  divine  right  and  the 
self-governing  congregation  drawing  and  delegating 
power  according  to  the  sacred  texts  of  the  Bible. 

In  the  Netherlands  the  Reformation  reached  per- 
haps its  highest  point.  The  revolt  of  the  provinces 
against  Spain  brought  forward  in  William  the  Silent 
of  the  House  of  Orange,  a  prince  in  whom  many  of 
the  elements  of  the  movement  blended  happily.  He 
stood  for  a  new  compromise  in  government  between 
the  monarch's  will  and  that  of  the  community.  He 
believed  in  toleration  and  not  in  exclusivism.  He 
was  the  man  of  his  own  times  and  of  the  future  as 
well,  for  he  was  perhaps  the  first  leader  of  Europe 
who  adopted  the  new  mental  attitude  of  recognising 
that  one's  adversary  may  after  all  have  something  to 
say  for  himself,  that  truth  is  not  a  fixed  but  a  per- 
sonal and  fluctuating  quantity.  In  the  slow  crum- 
bling down  of  Roman  ideas,  there  is  no  greater  land- 
mark than  that;  and  it  was  fit  that  the  Jesuits'  hand 
should  be  behind  the  dagger  that  struck  William  the 
Silent  down  in  1584. 

In  1609,  and,  after  a  new  struggle,  in  1648,  Holland 
won  her  independence  from  Spain.  Her  people  were 
in  part  Catholic,  but  mostly  Protestant.  Of  the  latter 


270        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

a  few  followed  Arminius  in  a  doctrine  similar  to 
that  of  Servetus  and  Socinus,  while  the  greater  part 
were  Calvinist.  There  was  some  degree  of  struggle 
and  persecution,  as  was  almost  inevitable.  But  on 
the  whole  it  is  true  to  say  that  Holland  in  the  sev- 
enteenth century  takes  the  lead  among  the  nations  of 
Europe  for  toleration,  and  particularly  for  the  way 
in  which  her  universities  open  their  arms  to  the  per- 
secuted thinkers  of  England,  of  France,  and  of  Ger- 
many. Rationalism  in  government,  in  thought,  and 
in  conscience,  was  there  rapidly  developed  as  the  real 
legacy  of  the  Reformation  to  Europe. 

One  great  state  has  so  far  escaped  mention,  and 
will  serve  as  a  text  on  which  to  hang  much  that  has 
not  so  far  been  said.  With  Spain  it  will  not  be  out 
of  place  to  come  to  the  horrors  and  abominations  of 
the  long  period  of  rancorous  war  that  closed  with  the 
Peace  of  Westphalia,  that  smeared  Christianity  with 
indelible  stains  of  blood  flowing  from  a  mortal  wound. 

Philip  attempted  to  carry  out  with  the  Spanish 
monarchy  what  his  father  had  failed  to  accomplish 
with  a  wider  heritage.  The  enormous  wealth  drawn 
by  Spain  from  America,  her  strong  centralized  organ- 
ization, her  superb  army  and  skilful  generals,  sup- 
ported by  the  equally  efficient  black-robed  army  of 
the  Inquisition,  were  launched  at  the  Protestants  of 
France,  England,  and  the  Netherlands.  No  compro- 
mise was  admitted,  no  quarter  was  given,  and  what 
followed  was  horrible.  In  the  name  of  religion  whole 
populations  were  devastated,  diabolical  cruelty  and 


THE   REFORMATION  271 

outrage  were  licensed,  torture  and  lust  were  sancti- 
fied. And  all  for  very  poor  results.  In  France  the 
Spaniards  accomplished  little.  In  England  they  were 
not  able  to  set  foot,  owing  to  the  defeat  of  their  Ar- 
mada. In  the  Netherlands  they  succeeded  in  holding 
the  southern  but  not  the  northern  half.  And  the  price 
paid  may  in  a  faint  way  be  conveyed  by  a  few  statis- 
tics of  population.  In  twenty  years  (1568-1589)  Ant- 
werp, the  commercial  metropolis  of  Europe,  saw  her 
population  reduced  from  150,000  to  50,000.  Ypres, 
with  200,000  people  in  the  thirteenth  century,  was  re- 
duced to  5000  after  the  second  sack  by  the  Spaniards, 
and  remains  a  small  city  to  this  day.  And  there  were 
other  cases  very  similar. 

Germany  suffered  almost  as  severely,  and  it  is  sug- 
gestive to  note  how  closely  the  area  devastated  by 
these  wars  followed  the  old  boundary  of  the  Rhine 
and  Danube  that  marked  the  frontier  of  the  Roman 
Empire.  The  cities  that  border  these  rivers  suffered 
the  same  visitations  from  the  demon  armies  of  re- 
ligion as  did  those  of  the  Netherlands.  Augsburg, 
Nuremberg,  Ulm,  the  opulent  commercial  centres  of 
southern  Germany,  were  devastated  very  much  as 
Antwerp  was.  Ulm,  with  100,000  people  when  the 
Reformation  began,  and  with  a  new  prosperity  at  the 
present  day,  still  has  only  50,000  people.  In  the  val- 
ley of  the  Rhine,  Worms  fell  from  70,000  before  the 
Reformation  to  40,000  in  1600;  then  followed  the 
Thirty  Years'  War,  and  in  1815  the  population  was 
given  at  only  5000;  it  is  now  increased  to  about 
20,000.  But  the  horrors  of  the  period  are  inexhausti- 


272        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

ble,  and  sickening.  Like  a  tender  child,  streaming  with 
blood  and  half  demented,  struggling  to  escape  from 
the  hands  of  bestial  soldiers  and  torturing  priests, 
while  all  around  the  blackening  timbers  of  her  home 
pour  flames  and  smoke,  the  Europe  of  the  future, 
gashed  and  indelibly  disfigured,  kept  her  eyes,  still 
hoping,  on  the  faint  horizon,  struggled,  struggled,  and 
finally  escaped  from  the  almost  fatal  ordeal. 


CHAPTER  XV 

FROM   THE   PEACE    OF   WESTPHALIA   TO   THE  VATICAN 
COUNCIL 

If  one  had  to  pick  the  names  of  three  men  who, 
more  than  any  others,  ilkistrate  the  tendencies  of  the 
half-century  that  followed  the  Peace  of  Westphalia, 
they  would  be  those  of  Bayle,  Locke,  and  Grotius, 
although  the  last  belongs  strictly  to  an  earlier  period. 
One  of  them  was  Dutch,  another  French,  though  re- 
siding in  Holland,  and  the  other  English. 

With  Locke  we  reach  the  theory  of  political  oppor- 
tunism and  the  doctrine,  if  it  can  be  so  called,  of 
compromise  between  Parliament  and  monarch  that 
marked  the  fall  of  the  Stuarts  and  the  establishment 
of  William  of  Orange  on  the  throne  of  England  (1688) . 
While  Louis  XIV  in  France,  and  for  the  most  part  the 
European  monarchies  down  to  the  great  revolution- 
ary era  (1789-1871),  were  using  the  theory  of  divine 
right  to  establish  bureaucratic  despotism,  the  Eng- 
lish and  Dutch  were  variously  contributing  to  the 
growth  of  the  opposite  mode  of  politics,  on  which  is 
based  so  much  that  we  know  at  the  present  day. 

Grotius  gave  expression  to  something  else.  His 
work  slightly  antedates  the  settlement  of  1648,  but 
its  influence  was  not  really  felt  until  that  date.  Eu- 
rope was  crying  aloud  for  deliverance  from  the  an- 
archy with  which  the  great  struggle  threatened  her. 


274         THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

The  legal  and  classical  studies  of  the  Renaissance 
had  opened  the  way  for  a  restatement  of  the  old  juris- 
tic theory  of  the  jus  naturale.  Suarez  and  Gentilis 
were  the  pioneers  whom  Grotius  closely  followed, 
publishing  in  1625  his  De  Jure  Belli  ac  Pads,  the  first 
great  treatise  of  international  law,  the  inevitable  sub- 
stitute for  the  now  disrupted  law  of  the  Church.  The 
conception  of  a  lay  code,  based  on  a  certain  measure 
of  neighbourly  human  regard  instead  of  on  the  de- 
crees of  the  Curia,  regulating  the  intercourse  of  na- 
tions in  the  same  manner  as  the  great  compacts  of 
Augsburg,  of  Nantes,  and  of  Westphalia  had  regu- 
lated the  intercourse  of  individuals  of  different  faiths 
within  national  borders,  proved  a  kernel  from  which, 
as  everyone  knows,  the  greatest  political  movement 
of  our  own  day  has  slowly  been  evolved.  Through 
the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  centuries  such  doc- 
trines as  that  of  the  balance  of  power,  and  of  the 
rights  of  neutrals,  such  tendencies  as  may  be  found  in 
the  assembling  of  international  congresses,  all  belong 
to  the  range  of  ideas  of  which  Grotius  may,  in  a  sense, 
claim  to  be  the  father. 

Bayle  is  perhaps  even  more  important.  With  him 
we  reach  the  man  bred  within  the  Church,  steeped 
in  the  old  learning  and  theology,  but  in  whom  the 
new  spirit  of  enquiry  and  criticism  has  worked  so  far 
that  the  sceptical  point  of  view  has  been  attained. 
Bayle  enquired  freely  into  all  subjects,  upheld  the 
freedom  of  investigation  and  opinion,  and  made  large 
use  of  the  press.  His  periodical,  the  Nouvelles  de  la 
Republique  des  Lettres,  was  an  event  in  European 


FROM  WESTPHALIA   TO   THE   VATICAN    275 

thought,  as  it  was  the  prototype  of  that  flood  of 
popular  reviews  and  magazines  which  at  the  present 
day  give  such  a  free  vent  to  opinion.  His  Dictionnaire 
Historique  et  Critique  (1696)  was  a  precursor  of  re- 
vohition,  for  it  gave  the  outline  which  Diderot  and 
D'Alembert  were  soon  to  fill  in  with  their  epoch- 
making  Encyclopedie. 

But  what  have  Locke,  Grotius,  Bayle,  to  do  with 
religion?  How  stood  the  Papacy  at  this  epoch,  and 
the  Protestant  offshoots  formed  at  the  time  of  the  wars 
of  religion?  The  answer  is  that  the  activity  displayed 
in  the  general  direction  which  we  have  just  consid- 
ered was  accompanied  by  a  corresponding  reaction 
in  organized  religion.  Although  the  minor  Protestant 
sects  were  continuing  a  steady  development,  particu- 
larly in  England  and  her  colonies,  and  in  less  degree 
in  Holland  and  Germany,  the  Papacy,  the  Lutheran 
and  Anglican  churches,  were  in  a  state  of  reaction 
not  astonishing  under  the  circumstances.  In  attempt- 
ing to  narrate  the  movements  of  the  period  that  lies 
between  1648  and  1789,  the  relations  of  the  Roman 
Church  with  the  Bourbon  monarchy  will  give  the 
best  central  line. 

France  had  witnessed  remarkable  developments 
since  the  accession  of  the  first  Bourbon,  Henry  of 
Navarre.  Richelieu,  Mazarin,  Louis  XIV,  in  turn 
directed  affairs,  and  with  these  statesmen  what  pre- 
vails is,  in  theory,  the  divine  right  of  kings,  or  let  us 
say  arbitrary  despotism;  in  practice  the  breakdown 
of  what  was  left  of  feudal  power  for  the  benefit  of 
centralized  bureaucracy. 


276        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

We  need  not  dwell  on  the  political  and  military 
sides  of  the  great  monarchy  of  Louis  XIV,  but  on 
the  religious  side  several  matters  deserve  notice.  The 
Revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes  in  1685  tore  up 
the  settlement  whereby  the  Huguenots  had  secured 
toleration.  Since  the  edict  of  Henry  IV  they  had  in 
fact  gained  little  ground.  They  were  an  industrious, 
self-respecting  class  of  men,  but  small  and  of  slight 
influence.  Louis,  on  the  other  hand,  was  at  the 
height  of  his  power.  With  advancing  years  he  had 
come  more  and  more  under  the  influence  of  the 
priests.  Mme.  de  Maintenon,  who  at  the  last  married 
him,  was  a  bigot,  and  that  proved  the  deciding  factor. 
Thenceforth,  by  the  will  of  the  king,  Catholicism 
was  enforced  in  France,  and  continued  for  all  prac- 
tical purposes  the  exclusive  state  religion  for  the 
next  hundred  years. 

But  if  Catholicism  was  enforced,  it  was  after  a 
fashion  that  would  not  have  commended  itself  to  any 
of  the  great  Popes  and  Fathers.  The  forms  of  relig- 
ion and  its  pomp  became  everything,  and  insensibly 
melted  into  adulation  of  the  divinely  appointed  Roi 
Soleil,  that  suggested  more  than  once  the  position  of 
Henry  VIII  in  the  sixteenth  century  or  even  the 
adoration  that  had  once  surrounded  the  Emperor 
Diocletian.  For  it  was  not  only  the  administration 
of  military  and  fiscal  affairs  that  Louis  had  con- 
centrated at  Versailles,  but  the  whole  intellectual, 
artistic,  and  religious  energy  of  France.  It  was  an 
all-pervading  influence,  so  that  even  the  Church  was 
embossed  with  the  same  Bourbon  mark  as  the  poli- 


FROM  WESTPHALIA  TO   THE   VATICAN   277 

tics,  the  furniture,  the  tactics,  the  etiquette,  and  every 
other  manifestation  of  the  epoch.  FormaHsm,  rhet- 
oric, inflation,  sestheticism,  pose,  and  latent  insin- 
cerity mark  the  Church  in  France  through  this 
period. 

There  were  revolts,  however.  Pascal,  Fenelon,  Port 
Royal,  Gallicanism,  Jansenism  are  names  that  con- 
jure up  ideas  of  internal  dissension,  of  a  spirit  of  pro- 
test still  working,  though  in  much  attenuated  form. 
Righteousness  and  mystic  piety  are  associated  with 
these  names,  dogmatic  divergence,  leanings  away 
from  the  empty  formalism  then  in  fashion;  and  with 
Gallicanism  something  of  perhaps  even  greater  im- 
port. 

Gallicanism  was  the  result  of  a  long-spun  situation. 
In  somewhat  obvious  terms  it  might  be  described 
as  a  territorial  tendency  towards  detachment,  which 
made  the  French  clergy  incline  to  split  away  from 
the  Papacy  just  as  the  Frankish  monarchy  had  from 
the  Empire.  In  a  more  specific  sense,  and  without 
recalling  the  incidents  of  early  centuries,  we  may 
pass  to  the  year  1682  when  the  French  clergy  drew 
up  certain  articles  with  the  approval  of  the  king. 
By  these  it  was  declared  that  the  authority  of  the  Ro- 
man See  did  not  extend  to  temporal  affairs,  in  which 
the  king  was  the  supreme  power,  and  that  the  oath 
of  allegiance  overrode  any  Papal  dispensation  or  in- 
junction; that  councils  were  superior  to  the  Pope; 
and  that  the  special  customs  of  the  Gallican  Church 
remained  in  force.  Against  these  declarations  the 
Popes  protested  on  more  than  one  occasion  during 


278        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

the  succeeding  century.  Yet  the  threatened  seces- 
sion of  the  Gallican  Church  has  not  from  that  day  to 
this  come  much  nearer  accomplishment. 

Apart  from  the  flashes  of  vigour,  or  of  independ- 
ence, which  we  have  just  noted,  the  history  of  the 
Church  during  the  century  and  a  half  that  stretches 
from  the  Peace  of  Westphalia  to  the  French  Revo- 
lution was  one  of  decreasing  strength,  of  gradual  stag- 
nation, of  apathy,  even  of  scepticism.  The  terrific 
effort  of  the  Counter-Reformation  had  been  followed 
by  an  inevitable  reaction.  The  prestige,  the  vitality, 
the  faith  of  the  Church  suffered  a  visible  decline. 
More  particularly  during  the  eighteenth  century  the 
monastic  houses  lost  their  inmates  to  an  extraordin- 
ary extent,  save  in  the  more  backward  parts  of  Italy 
and  Spain.  The  occupants  of  the  Papal  throne  were 
mostly  weak  men,  doubtful  of  their  position,  though 
still  making  efforts  to  assert  it. 

Even  the  Order  of  Jesuits  could  not  resist  the 
growing  scepticism  of  the  age,  and  fell  into  a  great 
decay.  Since  the  days  when  Father  Mariana  had  pub- 
^licly  taught  the  doctrine  of  tyrannicide  in  Rome  and 
Madrid,  they  had  generally  been  held  responsible  for 
the  many  assassinations  and  attempts  at  assassina- 
tion that  had  marked  the  great  religious  struggle. 
And  even  if  the  direct  evidence  for  this  had  generally 
been  wanting,  yet  the  moral  connection  was  the  all- 
important  one,  and  as  to  that  there  was  little  enough 
doubt.  So  that  the  Jesuits  had  attached  to  them  an 
odium  diflScult  to  live  down  in  a  less  believing  and 
less  strenuous  age.    And  as  the  education  of  laymen 


FROM  WESTPHALIA   TO   THE   VATICAN   279 

increased,  while  statesmanship  was  becoming  secular 
and  economic,  their  persistence  in  attempting  to  con- 
trol politics  through  the  confessional  produced  a 
deadly  jealousy  and  enmity  which  in  the  end  over- 
whelmed them. 

Pascal  dealt  them  the  first  heavy  blow,  in  his  Lettres 
Provinciales,  by  his  merciless  exposure  of  their  casuis- 
try and  inverted  morality.  His  dexterous  wit  and 
ridicule  did  its  fatal  work  on  them,  and  opened  the 
way  for  other  satire  which,  in  the  hands  of  writers 
like  Montesquieu  and  Voltaire,  was  soon  to  help  pull 
down  the  Church  itself  and  Bourbonism  with  it.  No 
one  rallied  to  the  Jesuits'  support,  and  it  was  found 
that  in  all  their  wonderful  equipment  for  intellectual 
conflict,  irony  and  wit  were  the  two  weapons  they 
could  neither  wield  nor  withstand. 

The  second  blow  came  midway  through  the  eight- 
eenth century.  At  that  epoch  the  Jesuits  numbered 
over  twenty  thousand,  and  they  possessed  about  one 
thousand  establishments  of  education.  In  1759,  Pom- 
bal,  the  secularizing  Portuguese  minister,  trumped 
up  some  doubtful  charges  against  the  Jesuits,  ex- 
pelled them,  and  confiscated  their  property.   His  ex- 
ample was  promptly  followed  by  Choiseul  in  France, 
the  issue  being  placed  on  the  ground  that  the  society 
acquired  wealth  through    commercial  transactions. 
Spain  followed  suit.    Great  pressure  was  brought  to 
bear  on  the  Pope,  who  in  1773  decreed  the  abolition 
of  the  Order. 

The  abolition  of  the  Society  of  Jesus  coincided,  and 
not  by  chance,  with  the  great  wave  of  scepticism  that 


280        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

swept  the  eighteenth  century  on  to  the  breakers  of 
the  French  Revolution.  The  death  of  Louis  XIV 
had  closed  an  epoch  in  France.  The  monarchy  in 
the  hands  of  the  Regent,  Philippe  d'Orleans,  lost  its 
prestige.  The  throne  no  longer  supported  literature, 
which  promptly  addressed  itself  to  a  fast-growing  cir- 
cle of  educated  readers.  Montesquieu,  following  Pas- 
cal's lead,  fired  delicately  barbed  shafts  of  wit  at  Bour- 
bonism  itself,  and  turned  against  the  Church  with 
an  outspokenness  that  reveals  much  as  to  the  grow- 
ing unbelief  of  France.  For  in  1721,  in  his  Lettres 
Persanes,  he  ventured  to  declare  that  "the  Pope 
is  an  old  idol  to  whom  incense  is  offered  from  mere 
habit."  Voltaire  followed,  and  went  further,  for  in  a 
long  literary  career  of  over  half  a  century,  he  contin- 
uously attacked  the  Church.  He  ridiculed  the  myth- 
ical, legendary,  and  miraculous,  on  rationalistic 
grounds.  Of  all  his  famous  utterances  on  this  text 
perhaps  the  most  pungent  is  the  one  ridiculing  a  royal 
decree  prohibiting  the  practice  of  certain  psychic  dis- 
orders in  connection  with  the  schismatic  Jansenists. 
"In  the  king's  name,"  says  Voltaire,  "God  is  for- 
bidden to  commit  miracles  here."  ^  The  epigram  il- 
lustrates well  enough  the  relative  importance  of 
Church  and  State,  and  that  the  faith  of  the  age  was 
not  precisely  that  of  the  time  of  the  Crusades  and  of 
St.  Francis. 

There  was  another  aspect  of  Voltaire's  attack  on 
Christianity.  In  the  attempt  to  maintain  its  privi- 

^  De  par  le  Roi,  defense  a  Dieu, 
De  faire  miracle  en  ce  lieu. 


FROM  WESTPHALIA  TO   THE  VATICAN   281 

leged  position  by  a  vigorous  enforcement  of  its  laws, 
the  Church  displayed  a  cruel  rigorism  that  echoed 
the  barbarities  of  the  seventeenth  and  sixteenth  cent- 
uries. In  scandalous  cases,  like  that  of  de  La  Barre, 
Voltaire's  voice  was  raised  loudest  on  behalf  of  justice 
and  of  humanitarianism,  conceptions  rapidly  making 
headway  in  his  time,  and  in  some  measure  through 
his  efforts.  His  "Ecrasez  I'infame! "  was  the  indignant 
protest  of  toleration  against  revolting  barbarities  and 
the  unfeeling  cruelty  of  Latin  despotism. 

Few  people  nowadays  realize  how  comparatively 
recent  is  the  growth  of  the  ideas  of  humanitarianism 
or  philanthropy,  of  social  justice  and  of  toleration. 
Of  the  last  something  has  already  been  said,  but  the 
others  are  inseparable  and  are  also  part  of  the  after- 
math of  the  Reformation.   It  would  be  useless  to 
attempt  to  find  in  literature  prior  to  the  year  1700 
anything  more  than  a  faint  beginning  of  ideas  that 
now,  two  hundred  years  later,  are  rapidly  dominating 
civilization.   It  is  true  that  such  ideas  are  to  be  found 
in  the  Stoics,  as  in  Seneca,  or  that,  turning  to  a  later 
age,  passages  of  Chaucer  might  be  selected  that  reflect 
a  spirit  not  far  removed  from  that  of  Oliver  Gold- 
smith, but  there  is  no  large,  steady,  continuous  move- 
ment leading  to  immediate  and  important  results.   It 
is  only  after  1700  that  these  ideas  make  rapid  pro- 
gress in  western  Europe;  they  range  all  the  way  from 
the  practical  to  the  idealistic,  from  the  efforts  of  re- 
formers to  improve  the  working  of  the  criminal  law  to 
the  sickly  sentimental  art  of  a  Bernardin  de  St.  Pierre 
or  a  Greuze,  all  the  way  from  the  religious  pietism  of 


282        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

a  Spener  or  a  Wesley,  to  the  anti-Christian  sensibiHty 
and  morbid  tenderness  of  a  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau. 
These  tendencies  must  be  viewed  a  Httle  more  closely. 
It  would  be  hopeless  to  attempt  to  trace  them  in  all 
their  ramifications.  Some  aspects  must  of  necessity  be 
neglected,  others  will  be  touched  on  when  the  nine- 
teenth century  is  reached,  and  for  the  present  purpose 
it  is  only  those  most  intimately  associated  with  religion 
that  will  be  dealt  with. 

In  Germany  religion  was  hard  and  narrow  when 
the  Peace  of  Westphalia  was  signed;  it  could  hardly 
have  been  otherwise.  But  all  the  elements  of  a  real 
religious  life  had  been  stirred  and  were  still  alive  be- 
low the  surface.  It  was  the  work  of  Philip  Spener 
(1635-1705)  to  stimulate  them  to  activity,  and  by 
founding  Pietism  to  give  Germany  a  new  religious 
movement.  He  was  in  nothing  more  modern  than  in 
his  opposition  to  formal  theology,  and  he  laid  his 
stress  on  conduct  and  morality. 

Just  as  Spener  died  Wesley  was  born,  who  was  to 
carry  a  similar  work  to  an  even  greater  result  in  Eng- 
land. His  revolt  against  the  narrow  forms  and  aristo- 
cratic restrictions  of  the  Church  of  England,  his  demo- 
cratic sympathies  and  ethical  leanings,  made  him  the 
real  successor  of  Wycliffe,  and  the  founder  of  modern 
nonconformity.  It  was  not  only  the  Established 
Church  that  was  narrow,  intolerant,  and  unfruitful, 
but  the  sects  it  had  thrown  off  during  the  Tudor  and 
Stuart  periods,  especially  those  whose  strongholds 
were  now  in  the  American  colonies.  Wesley  blew  a 
breath  of  humanity,  of  realism,  and  of  charity  into 


FROM   WESTPHALIA   TO   THE   VATICAN  283 

religion;  a  id  he  founded  the  great  Wesleyan  denom- 
ination. 

In   France  it  was  not  possible  that  a  movement 
exactly   corresponding  should    take  place,   for  the 
Huguenots  had  been  driven  out,  and  an  absolute 
monarchy  of  the  most  extreme  type  had  been  estab- 
lished, and  had  enforced  the  Catholic  discipline.    So 
what  change  took  place  was  merely  that  religion  came 
to  mean  more  and  more  compliance,  less  and  less 
faith.   Even  high-placed  Church  dignitaries  scoffed 
openly  at  the  beliefs  which  they  were  prepared  to 
enforce  by  torture  and  execution.   With  a  tremendous 
development  proceeding  in  education  and  the  press, 
scepticism  presently  increased  and  atheism  showed 
its   head.   Soon  there  were  two  camps  in  France, 
Christian   and  non-Christian,  and  of  necessity   no 
gradations  between  these  two  extremes;  a  man  must 
profess   Rome,  or   unbelief,  there  was   no   midway 
house.  And  it  was  this  that  differentiated  the  liber- 
ation of  thought  in  France  from  what  took  place  in 
Germany  and  England,  where  the  move  away  from 
the  Roman  ideas  comported  an  infinite  gradation  of 
doubt,  enquiry,  criticism,  and  revolt,  by  a  hundred 
shades  of  Christian  theories  only  watered  out  by  de- 
grees to  the  point  of  actual  unbelief. 

In  France  the  anti-religious  current  took  two  di- 
rections, towards  atheism  with  the  Encyclopgedists, 
towards  deism  with  Rousseau.  The  Encyclopsedia  was 
a  composite  work,  and  men  of  all  opinions  wrote  for  it, 
yet  of  its  many  contributors  Holbach  undoubtedly 
expresses  most  strongly  the  anti-religious,  atheistic 


'284         THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

side  which  may  properly  be  emphasized.  L  should  be 
remarked,  however,  that  this  school  of  wHters  was 
almost  as  narrow  and  bigoted  in  its  views  as  the 
French  clergy  itself.  With  Rousseau  we  come  to 
something  far  more  fluid  and  human. 

Jean  Jacques  Rousseau  (1712-1778)  belonged  to 
one  of  the  lower  social  strata  just  touched  by  the  in- 
creased range  of  education  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
He  emerged  from  evil  social  and  moral  surroundings 
by  his  facility  as  a  writer,  and  by  his  audacity  in  at- 
tacking the  social  order,  a  sure  road  to  literary  fame 
even  in  that  age.  At  forty  he  found  himself  suddenly 
famous,  and  he  worked  his  vogue  assiduously.  He 
denounced  property,  wealth,  and  government.  He 
championed  the  under  man  whom  he  idealized  and 
sentimentalized,  and  in  that  lay  the  great  force  of  his 
work,  coming  as  it  did  at  a  moment  when  in  France 
and  generally  in  Europe  the  social  adjustment  bore 
with  terrible  severity  on  the  lower  classes.  In  Rous- 
seau the  ignoble  always  tends  to  soar  to  the  empy- 
rean, and  religion  is  the  cult  of  a  benevolent  Supreme 
Being,  who,  by  first  destroying  all  that  Europe  had 
built  in  so  many  centuries,  will  accomplish  the  under 
man's  apotheosis.  It  is  a  programme  of  individual 
revolt  against  a  crushing  system  of  intellectual  and 
ethical  tyranny,  and  a  programme  of  social  happi- 
ness. 

The  French  Revolution  broke  out  eleven  years 
after  Rousseau's  death.  Voltaire,  like  so  many  others, 
had  predicted  it,  and  had  foretold  that  it  would  be- 
gin by  an  attack  on  the  Church.  This  prophecy  was 


,     FROM  WESTPHALIA  TO  THE  VATICAN  285 

not  fulfilled,  and  yet  events  came  near  justifying  it. 
Financial  chaos  and  the  struggle  of  the  middle  class 
for  power  marked  its  first  stages,  but  was  soon  fol- 
lowed by  mob  rule  and  the  assertion  of  democratic 
ideas.  The  intellectual  class  took  the  lead  in  dis- 
placing the  priest  and  the  baron,  and  the  common 
man  then  came  near  pushing  out  the  intellectual 
class.  In  the  turmoil,  feudalism  and  the  Church  ap- 
peared to  sink;  their  estates  and  their  privileges  were 
called  in.  Eventually  demagogues  got  control,  and  at 
last  Hebert  closed  the  churches  and  called  on  France 
to  adopt  atheism  as  its  creed. 

This  extreme  point  of  the  Revolution  brought 
about  what  is  perhaps  its  strangest  incident.  At  that 
moment  political  power  passed  into  the  hands  of 
Robespierre.  He  was  a  Rousseauist  of  extreme  type, 
a  fanatic  of  a  new  and  fantastic  cult  of  Nature  and 
Man.  He  struck  down  in  Hebert  both  the  political 
opponent  and  the  atheist,  the  enemy  of  religion.  And 
once  in  complete  control  he  attempted  to  force  the 
worship  of  Nature,  equipped  with  creed,  ethics,  and 
festivals  complete,  on  a  far  from  enthusiastic  people. 
He  was  able  to  celebrate  his  festival  of  the  Supreme 
Being,  and  immediately  after  fell  headlong  from 
power,  bringing  the  new  cult  down  with  him. 

For  the  five  years  that  followed,  France  was  gov- 
erned by  a  clique  of  professed  atheists.  The  war 
waged  between  them  and  the  Church,  between  Re- 
publicans and  Royalists  in  the  Vendee,  was  nothing 
but  a  belated  phase  of  the  wars  of  religion.  Exter- 
mination,  hatred,    fanaticism,    played  their   accus- 


THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

tomed  parts;  and  the  Directoire  almost  threw  away 
Bonaparte's  conquest  of  Italy  by  seeing  in  the  Pope 
an  enemy  whose  destruction  would  be  the  supreme 
triumph.  And  by  this  extraordinary  and  violent  con- 
flict, with  so  little  apparently  to  prepare  it,  we  can 
gauge  the  depth  of  the  revolt  that  had  taken  place, 
a  revolt  of  the  long-repressed  intellect  and  conscience 
of  Europe,  and  of  its  long-tyrannized  under  classes. 

In  1799  Bonaparte  drove  the  inefficient  Directoire 
from  power.  He  realized  the  small  numbers  of  the 
anti-religious  party  and  that  it  was  politically  dead. 
So  he  resolutely  set  to  work  to  reestablish  the  Church, 
but  on  conditions.  These  conditions  in  the  main 
amounted  to  this,  that  the  control  of  the  state  over 
the  Church  should  be  much  more  complete  than 
formerly,  especially  on  the  financial  side;  that  the 
liberty  and  equality  which  the  Republic  had  shed  its 
blood  for  should  receive  its  religious  application  in 
absolute  freedom  of  conscience. 

During  an  intercourse  of  fifteen  years  with  the 
Papacy,  whose  power  he  had  in  a  measure  restored 
in  France,  Napoleon  fought  hard  for  supremacy  of 
Emperor  over  Pope,  and  by  dint  of  force  and  severity 
carried  his  point.  Yet,  after  all,  it  was  he  who  gave 
the  Church  its  first  push  upward  after  its  long  and 
almost  fatal  decline  through  the  eighteenth  century, 
and  who  therefore  helped  on  the  great  revival  that 
was  to  mark  the  nineteenth,  and  that  was  to  carry 
the  Papacy  to  the  triumph  of  the  Vatican  Council, 

Pius  VII  was  made  Pope  in  1800;  he  was  mild,  hon- 
est, steadfast;  he  commanded  respect,  and  although 


,   FROM  WESTPHALIA   TO   THE   VATICAN   287 

not  to  be  ranked  with  the  great  Popes,  had  real  quali- 
fications for  his  office.  During  his  stirring  pontificate 
the  affairs  of  the  Papacy  took  a  sudden  turn  for  the 
better.  The  causes  of  the  reaction  are  difficult  to  ana- 
lyze, but  an  explanation  of  them  must  be  attempted. 
It  must  be  based  first  on  certain  broad  movements, 
and  secondly  on  others  that  are  little  more  than  the 
incidents  of  the  period. 

Viewing  Christianity  in  its  widest  expression,  then, 
it  may  be  advanced  that  the  religious  activity  of  the 
eighteenth  century  in  Germany  and  England,  which 
we  have  conveniently  associated  with  the  Pietists 
and  the  Wesleyans,  was  an  inevitable  result  of  the  Re- 
formation once  the  reaction  which  marked  the  close 
of  the  period  of  violence  had  passed.  Even  in  France 
the  humanitarian  and  sentimental  current  which  we 
have  associated  with  the  names  of  Rousseau  and 
Robespierre  may  properly  be  thought  of  as  part  of 
the  same  general  tendency.  When,  therefore,  the 
anti-Roman  storm  of  the  Revolution  has  blown  over 
we  merely  see  the  current  reestablishing  itself,  only 
now  with  some  superficial  differences.  And  the  great- 
est of  these  differences  applies  to  the  Roman  Church, 
which,  having  been  reviled  and  despoiled,  is  now 
chastened,  shows  once  more  its  deeper  and  truer 
qualities,  and  gets  the  full  benefit  of  the  reaction 
from  revolutionary  excesses  and  the  new  vogue  for 
ideas  of  monarchy  by  divine  right  that  followed  the 
Congress  of  Vienna. 

Pius  and  his  able  secretary  of  state,  Consalvi, 
steered  the  Papacy  on  its  upward  course  until  1823. 


288         THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

* 
During  that  period  the  Jesuits,  who  had  obscurely 

clung  together  after  their  dissolution,  and  who  had 
been  timidly  and  tentatively  reestablished  during  the 
Revolutionary  wars,  rapidly  rose  to  power  once  more. 
Literature,  effecting  a  rapid  change  of  fashion  from 
classicism,  became  romantic,  and  with  some  of  the 
greatest  writers  of  the  period  took  on  a  garb  of  Christ- 
ian mysticism.  The  autocratic  reaction  that  marked 
the  fall  of  Napoleon  was  seized  on  as  the  moment  for 
obtaining  control  of  education,  that  is  of  the  new 
system  of  schools,  in  which  France  took  the  lead,  that 
were  to  spread  enlightenment  to  the  lower  classes. 

This  activity  of  religion  was  not  without  its  offsets 
in  a  corresponding  activity  of  philosophy  and  science. 
But  it  will  make  for  clearness  if  for  the  moment  we 
leave  these  to  one  side  and  trace  the  continuous  effort 
of  the  Roman  Church  down  to  the  year  1870. 

The  Jesuits,  education,  mysticism,  these  are  the 
three  great  points  to  keep  in  mind  when  dealing  with 
the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century;  together  with 
one  other  fact,  which  was  that  the  Papal  government 
was  not  keeping  up  with  the  rest  of  Europe  in  its 
administrative  methods.  While  the  greater  part  of 
Europe  was  prospering  economically,  and  was  much 
better  governed  by  paternal  monarchies  than  it  had 
ever  been  before,  the  Roman  State  had  made  a  direct 
attempt  to  return  to  mediaeval  conditions,  and  had 
in  large  measure  succeeded.  The  result  was  that  just 
as  Gregory  XVI  came  to  the  Papal  throne  in  1831, 
there  was  internal  revolution,  European  intervention, 
and  the  undisputed  establishment  of  the  fact  that 


FROM   WESTPHALIA   TO  THE   VATICAN   289 

next  to  Turkey  the  Papal  State  was  the  worst  gov- 
erned of  Europe. 

The  pontificate  of  Gregory  XVI  (1831-1846)  did 
not  mend  matters  in  this  respect,  and  at  his  death  a 
heavy  account  of  maladministration  had  to  be  set- 
tled. During  this  period  there  had  set  in  a  rising  tide 
of  mystical  enthusiasm,  especially  for  the  cult  of 
Mary.  The  Virgin  Mother  had  received  but  scant 
recognition  in  the  early  Church,  but  after  the  conver- 
sion of  Constantine,  and  especially  after  the  (Ecu- 
menic Council  held  in  430  at  Ephesus,  home  of  Cy- 
bele,  Mary  had  been  raised  to  a  position  but  little 
inferior  to  that  of  the  three  supreme  deities  of  the 
Trinity,  which  she  had  maintained  through  the  cent- 
uries.^ But  now  the  tendency  was  to  raise  her  if  pos- 
sible even  higher.  The  sacred  and  bleeding  heart  of 
Mary  became  the  fashionable  cult;  and  a  doctrine  of 
infinitely  ancient  antecedents,  as  yet  held  but  vaguely 
and  not  authoritatively  in  the  Church,  became  a 
topic  of  earnest  discussion.  Did  or  did  not  the  Church 
believe  in  the  immaculate  conception  of  the  Virgin, 
and  if  so,  in  precisely  what  terms.?  The  Controversy 
was  an  old  one.  It  gathered  fresh  momentum  under 
Gregory  XVI,  who  sanctioned  the  use  of  the  word 
"immaculate"  in  the  service,  but  it  was  left  to  his 

^  Is  it  hazardous  to  suggest  that  from  an  early  period  of 
Asiatic  mythology  the  tendency  for  the  female  god  to  secure 
the  foremost  position  exists;  and  that  it  is  only  the  great  politi- 
cal necessities  of  sovereign  worship  from  the  time  of  Alexander 
to  that  of  Diocletian  that  gives  to  the  male  god  a  passing  as- 
cendency? 


290        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

successor  to  take  the  final  step,  under  conditions 
of  some  importance. 

While  the  cult  of  Mary  took  on  the  aspects  just  de- 
scribed, a  struggle  arose  over  the  question  whether 
the  Jesuits,  or  the  Jesuit  methods,  should  control 
education,  particularly  in  France.  The  Society  had 
unerringly  placed  its  finger  on  the  vital  point.  With 
national  education  perhaps  the  greatest  achievement 
of  the  new  century,  and  with  science,  so  useful  to 
economic  development,  gaining  ground  rapidly,  the 
only  way  of  perpetuating  the  ancient  theories  of  the 
Church  was  by  securing  control  of  education.  For 
the  mind  of  the  child  can  be  moulded,  and  the  ideas 
that  are  carefully  planted  and  assiduously  cultivated 
in  the  tender  years  will  prove  ineradicable  later. 

Through  the  thirties  and  forties  opposition  rose 
fast  against  the  Jesuits.  Some  of  the  most  brilliant 
polemics  of  the  middle  of  the  century  were  directed 
against  them,  and  after  1846  ^  they  passed  under  a 
cloud  that  was  to  prove,  however,  of  a  transitory 
character.  Europe  was  nearing  1848.  Popular  forces 
were  rapidly  asserting  themselves.  Toleration  in 
matters  of  conscience  was  spreading,  with  inevitable 
influence  on  education.  From  that  moment  the  con- 
test, a  contest  still  raging,  for  control  of  the  schools 
became  the  greatest  of  national  problems  in  the 
Latin  states  and  in  less  degree  in  Germany. 

The  temporary  check  of  the  Jesuits  coincided 
roughly  with  the  death  of  Gregory  XVI  and  the  elec- 

^  The  publication  of  Gioberti's  Gesuita  Moderno  is  the  date 
chosen. 


FROM   WESTPHALIA   TO   THE   VATICAN   291 

tion  of  Pius  IX.  This  election  of  a  comparatively  ob- 
scure cardinal  to  the  Papacy  was  due  to  the  necessity 
felt  for  reforming  the  Papal  administration,  for  Mastai 
Ferretti  was  held  to  possess  just  those  qualities  of  per- 
sonal virtue  and  of  mild  theoretical  liberalism  that 
would  fit  the  circumstances.  He  immediately  pro- 
claimed an  amnesty  for  political  offenders,  and  this 
created  a  wave  of  popular  excitement  that  showed 
at  once  what  a  combustible  situation  existed,  and 
how  easily  the  new  Pope  might  prove  to  be  the  inno- 
cent torch  of  revolution. 

From  one  reform  Pius  was  pushed  on  to  another, 
until  in  1848  his  growing  embarrassment  was  sud- 
denly multiplied  a  hundredfold  by  the  outbreak  of  a 
revolutionary  movement  that  swept  Italy  from  Pa- 
lermo to  Turin,  and  that  spread  to  France,  Germany, 
and  Austria.   The  Pope  reluctantly  bowed  before  the 
storm,  granted  a  constitution  to  his  subjects,  and  sent 
his  army  to  the  north  to  join  the  Italian  forces  in  a 
national  struggle  against  Austria.  These  two  steps, 
taken  under  compulsion,  raised  questions  of  the  most 
vital  character.   For  if  the  Pope  admitted  that  his 
subjects  should  be  governed  under  a  parliamentary 
system,  how  could  he  still  be  thought  of  as  the  in- 
spired Vicar  of  God,  divinely  chosen,  and  therefore 
competent  beyond  human  competence.^  And  again, 
if  the  Papal  troops  were  to  fight  those  of  Austria,  how 
could  the  Pope's  catholic,  that  is,  international,  posi- 
tion be  maintained.?  Would  he  not  sink  back  into  a 
merely  Italian  function,  and  see  a  Gallican  and  Ger- 
man Church  break  away  following  the  example  of 


292        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

the  Anglican?  Was  he  not  the  Pope  of  German  and 
of  Itahan  alike? 

Pius,  now  slowly  falling  under  Jesuit  influence,  per- 
ceived the  fatal  dilemma  that  faced  him.  He  did  his 
timid  best  to  avoid  it.  Grave  trouble  ensued.  Radet- 
zky  defeated  Charles  Albert  of  Savoy,  and  as  the 
Austrians  triumphed  in  northern  Italy,  the  more  ex- 
treme Italians  raised  their  voices.  Democratic  leaders 
like  Mazzini  and  Garibaldi  appeared.  There  was  vio- 
lence in  Rome.  Pius  fled  from  his  capital.  A  republic 
was  proclaimed,  and  was  finally  suppressed  by  French 
troops  in  the  summer  of  1849. 

When  Pius  returned  to  Rome  he  was  face  to  face 
with  a  curious  situation.  Still  nominally  sovereign 
of  the  Papal  State  he  was  embarrassed  by  the  pre- 
sence of  the  French  troops  which  insured  him  against 
revolution,  and  the  people  of  Rome  against  the  me- 
disevalism  of  Papal  misgovernment.  But  though  the 
Romans,  viewing -the  Pope  from  too  near,  had  lost 
their  former  enthusiasm  for  him,  the  rest  of  Europe 
had  not.  To  zealous  Catholics  in  Austria,  Bavaria, 
Belgium,  France,  he  appeared  the  mild,  saintly,  and 
persecuted  successor  of  the  martyred  St.  Peter,  or  the 
more  recently  oppressed  Pius  VII.  And  the  Jesuits, 
keeping  discreetly  below  the  surface,  fanned  this 
Catholic  zeal  with  deadly  skill  in  every  part  of  Eu- 
rope. 

A  new  movement  swept  the  Church,  based  in  part 
on  the  factors  just  stated,  in  part  on  the  literary  and 
mystical  activity  of  the  earlier  part  of  the  century. 
It  concentrated  its  efforts  on  the  Pope,  now  little 


FROM  WESTPHALIA  TO  THE   VATICAN   293 

more  than  a  Jesuit  puppet.  It  was  determined  to 
strengthen  his  position  at  all  costs.  With  the  con- 
stant threat  to  the  temporal  power  presented  by  Ital- 
ian nationalism,  and  with  the  constant  attack  on  the 
religious  position  that  came  from  the  increasing  scep- 
ticism of  European  thought,  it  was  resolved  to  place 
an  authority  in  the  hands  of  the  Pope  greater  than 
he  had  ever  held  before.  It  was  largely  the  instinctive 
act  of  conscious  weakness. 

This  effort  of  Catholicism  revealed  itself  in  a  series 
of  incidents  that  fill  twenty  of  the  most  remarkable 
years  in  the  history  of  the  Papacy.  Only  a  few 
months  after  Mazzini's  Roman  Republic  had  been 
crushed  out  of  existence  a  council  of  Italian  bishops 
met  at  Spoleto.  Among  them  the  lead  was  taken  by 
the  Archbishop  of  Perugia,  Cardinal  Pecci,  who  was 
later  to  be  Leo  XIII.  The  council  believed  that  the 
gravity  of  the  situation  of  the  Church  lay  entirely  in 
the  growth  of  subversive,  anti-Roman  ideas,  and  it 
requested  the  Pope  to  define  the  position  of  the 
Church  in  regard  to  the  tendencies  of  nineteenth  cent- 
ury thought.  He  was  asked  to  issue  for  the  guidance 
of  his  flock  a  tabular  statement  of  all  doctrines  that 
were  to  be  reprobated  from  the  Social  Contract  and 
the  Declaration  of  the  Rights  of  Man,  which  had 
heralded  the  first  French  Republic,  to  those  of  Maz- 
zini  and  other  leaders  of  past  or  future  revolt.  The  re- 
quest of  the  council  was  complied  with,  but  not  until 
after  fifteen  years  had  elapsed;  before  then  another 
important  event  had  taken  place. 

While  the  onslaught  on  liberalism  suggested  by  the 


294        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

Council  of  Spoleto  was  slowly  maturing,  it  became  clear 
to  the  governing  minds  at  the  Vatican  that  it  had 
raised  incidentally  the  great  question  of  the  Papal  au- 
thority which  the  Councils  of  Constance,  Basle,  and 
Trent  had  not  really  settled.  And  the  idea  rapidly 
grew  that  this  must  now  be  the  policy  of  Rome,  to 
place  beyond  question  the  supremacy  of  the  Pope 
over  the  council,  to  make  him  the  only  and  unques- 
tioned head  of  the  Church.  After  this  the  rest  would 
be  easy.  Meanwhile  the  best  course  would  be  to  have 
the  Pope  first  assume  this  power  tentatively,  and  if 
no  insurmountable  opposition  arose,  this  would  pave 
the  way  for  its  recognition  by  a  council  of  the  Church. 

Now,  there  happened  to  be  a  question  much  at  the 
heart  of  the  Church  at  that  moment,  as  we  have 
already  seen,  that  of  the  Immaculate  Conception  of 
Mary.  There  was  virtual  unanimity  on  the  point, 
and  no  inconsiderable  enthusiasm.  The  doctrine  was 
ancient,  more  ancient  even  than  the  Church,  though 
few  realized  this,  but  it  had  never  been  oflScially  pro- 
claimed. Here,  then,  was  the  very  opportunity  to 
push  the  Papal  prerogative  just  one  step  further  than 
it  had  ever  been  pushed.  There  was  a  minor  reason 
too:  that  the  doctrine  had  always  been  a  favourite 
one  with  the  Jesuits,  but  opposed  by  their  enemies, 
the  Dominicans. 

In  a  pamphlet  written  in  1847  on  the  Immaculate 
Conception  of  Mary,  Father  Perrone,  a  notable 
Jesuit  theologian,  had  taken  the  novel  and  interest- 
ing doctrinal  position,  that  it  was  not  necessary  for 
dogma  to  be  based  on  scriptural  texts,  nor  even  on 


FROM  WESTPHALIA   TO  THE   VATICAN  295 

its  having  been  a  continuous  tradition  of  the  Church 
For  the  Church  might  be  held  to  have  a  latent  tra- 
dition, long  secret,  and  eventually  revealed  by  the 
action  of  faith.  The  act  of  faith  in  this  case  was  the 
great  movement  of  Mary  worship. 

This  was  accepted  as  the  doctrinal  basis.  The 
ground  was  carefully  prepared.  On  the  8th  of  De- 
cember, 1854,  Pius  issued  a  decree  on  his  sole  au- 
thority, declaring  the  Immaculate  Conception  to  be 
an  article  of  dogma.  This  was  gladly  accepted 
throughout  the  Catholic  world  save  by  a  few  theolo- 
gians here  and  there.  But  notwithstanding  this  suc- 
cess, the  Pope  and  his  advisers  felt  so  uneasy  as  to 
the  validity  of  their  action,  that  they  did  not  ven- 
ture to  submit  it  for  approval  when  the  Vatican 
Council  met  sixteen  years  later. 

That  was  the  first  great  step;  the  second  came  in 
1864,  with  the  issue  of  the  bull  Quanta  Cura  contain- 
ing the  first  Syllabus.  This  was  something  like  the 
tabular  statement  which  the  Council  of  Spoleto  had 
demanded,  and  contained  no  less  than  eighty  clauses 
m  which  were  specified  the  numerous  opinions  which 
the  Pope  branded  as  errors  and  therefore  to  be  re- 
jected by  all  Catholics.  Among  the  heads  under 
which  these  errors  were  enumerated  may  be  noted 
pantheism,  communism,  civil  marriage,  rationalism, 
the  temporal  power,  socialism,  latitudinarianism  (mod- 
ernism had  not  yet  been  invented),  and  Christian 
mora  s  and  ethics.  By  the  last  clause,  a  summary 
ot  all  the  i-est,  it  was  declared  to  be  a  damnable 
error  to  believe  that  "the  Roman  Pontiff  may  and 


296         THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

should  become  reconciled  and  in  accord  with  progress, 
liberalism,  and  recent  civilization." 

The  bull  Quanta  Cura  created  a  sensation.  But 
when  it  is  coolly  examined  it  reveals  nothing  but 
what  is  consistent.  Just  as  when  Contarini  and  Ca- 
raffa  had  led  the  two  opposite  camps,  it  was  the  un- 
compromising one  that  had  won.  And  in  its  triumph 
there  was  logic,  for  it  contained  the  whole  essence  of 
the  Roman  position.  The  guild  of  priests,  whose  tradi- 
tion stretched  back  to  Greece  and  Rome,  to  Judaea 
and  Asia,  whose  ideas  and  power  reposed  on  the  for- 
mulas of  Aristotle  and  Justinian,  and  on  traditions 
and  rites  held  sacred  for  a  score  of  centuries,  could 
not  accept  enquiry,  criticism,  free  opinion,  without 
surrendering  all  they  stood  for.  They  perceived  it 
clearly,  they  acted  up  to  what  they  saw,  and  the 
thoughtless  wondered  at  their  consistency,  boldness, 
and  strength.  The  second  Syllabus,  published  within 
these  last  few  months,  is  merely  a  reaflSrmation  of 
the  stand  taken  in  1864;  the  only  change  to  be  noted 
is  that  in  present-day  modernism  Rome  is  faced  by 
an  even  greater  problem  due  to  the  increasing  effect 
of  enlightenment  on  the  more  intellectual  elements 
of  the  Church. 

The  French  and  the  Italian  governments  promptly 
prohibited  the  publication  of  the  bull  Quanta  Cura; 
it  was  a  declaration  of  war,  and  moreover  a  shock  to 
the  average  educated  public.  The  Church  stiffened 
its  resistance.  •Behind  the  movement  towards  the 
strengthening  of  the  Papal  prerogative  was  the  ques- 
tion of  the  temporal  power.  Many  Catholics  in  every 


FROM  WESTPHALIA  TO  THE   VATICAN   297 

part  of  the  world  believed  it  to  be  a  source  of  weak- 
ness rather  than  of  strength,  and  would  have  been 
easily  reconciled  to  its  loss.  The  Jesuits  viewed  it 
otherwise,  and  saw  in  it  not  only  present  possession 
of  authority  over  central  Italy,  but  the  territorial 
independence  that  kept  the  Pope  free  from  any  na- 
tional connection  and  secured  his  position  as  head  of 
all  Catholics  equally.  This  party  said,  and  still  says, 
and  the  argument  is  historically  valid,  that  should 
the  Pope  accept  a  national  king  at  Rome  he  must 
inevitably  sink  sooner  or  later  to  the  position  of  an 
Italian  bishop. 

And  in  these  years- the  temporal  power,  still  under 
the  protection  of  French  bayonets,  was  very  seriously 
menaced.  Cavour  had  just  won  the  north,  and  Gari- 
baldi the  south  of  Italy  to  national  unity.  Rome  was 
directly  menaced.  And  preparations  therefore  con- 
tinued for  exalting  the  threatened  Pontiff.  The 
publication  of  the  bull  Quanta  Cura  was  followed 
by  the  preliminary  steps  for  assembling  a  council 
of  the  Church  for  the  special  purpose  of  proclaim- 
ing the  Papal  infallibility,  a  theological  variant  for 
the  plainer  term,  supremacy. 

It  took  six  years  to  prepare  the  council;  it  met  on 
the  8th  of  December,  1869,  and  adjourned  on  the 
18th  of  July,  1870.  Bishops  and  theologians  arrived 
from  all  parts  of  the  world,  and  among  them  were  two 
conspicuous  groups.  One  of  these  was  quite  small, 
but  very  distinguished;  it  comprised  those  church- 
men who  still  believed  in  the  conciliar  tradition 
partly  for  its  historical  value,  partly  because  they 


298        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

hoped  to  find  in  that  direction  some  help  in  reconcil- 
ing their  faith  with  the  general  movement  of  their 
time.  The  other  was  far  more  numerous,  but  signi- 
fied nothing  more  than  the  sheeplike  obedience  of 
the  mass,  or  at  best  its  enthusiasm  for  the  Catholic 
machine  of  which  it  saw  the  principle  in  the  Papal 
supremacy. 

The  whole  effort  of  the  council  centred  about  the 
question  of  the  Papal  infallibility.  The  Roman  case 
was  founded  on  Aquinas.  The  great  theologian  of 
the  Church,  basing  himself  on  a  forged  lihellus  used 
by  Urban  IV  against  the  Greek  claims,  had  declared 
that  to  the  Pope  alone  belonged  the  right  of  pronounc- 
ing in  matters  of  dogma,  and  that  from  him  alone 
proceeded  the  authority  of  the  councils.  It  was  true 
that  the  councils  had  decreed  otherwise,  and  that 
even  the  canons  of  the  last  one,  the  Council  of  Trent, 
called  on  the  clergy  for  an  oath  never  to  interpret  the 
Scriptures  otherwise  than  after  the  unanimous  consent 
of  the  Fathers.  But  that  mattered  little.  The  learn- 
ing and  liberalism  of  a  few  men  like  Strossmayer, 
Dupanloup,  Hefele,  Acton,  and  Dollinger  could  avail 
nothing  against  the  solid  vote  of  the  Latin  bishops 
carefully  rounded  up  by  the  Jesuits,  and  the  dogma 
of  the  Infallibility  was  duly  acclaimed. 

What  was  the  significance  of  the  step?  The  belief 
in  the  Papal  infallibility  was  a  very  old  tradition 
of  the  Church,  and  yet  its  conversion  into  dogma 
amounted  to  an  internal  revolution.  For  in  reality 
the  decision  of  the  Council  of  the  Vatican  was  an  act 
of  self-immolation;   it,  was  a  declaration  that  coun- 


FROM  WESTPHALIA  TO  THE   VATICAN   299 

cils  were  now  useless,  and  that  their  power  had  passed 
to  the  Pope.  So  that  the  Church,  which  had  started 
with  councils  and  no  Popes,  now  appears  destined  to 
finish  with  Popes  and  no  councils. 

In  strict  definition  infallibility  was  held  to  apply 
to  all  pronouncements  made  in  a  formal  manner  by 
the  Pope  in  matters  of  doctrine,^  and  that  in  the 
sense  of  positive  truth,  not  of  immunity  from  error. 
But  as  Selden  had  said,  with  rough  wisdom,  nearly 
three  centuries  before:  "The  Pope  is  infallible  where 
he  hath  power  to  command,  that  is,  where  he  must 
be  obeyed."  And  at  the  very  moment  that  the  Vati- 
can Council  was  acclaiming  Pius  IX  infallible,  France 
was  plunging  into  war  with  Germany.  A  few^  days 
later  her  troops  left  Rome,  the  Italian  troops  occu- 
pied the  city,  and  the  Papacy  had  lost  the  temporal 
power  which  it  had  held  since  the  days  of  the  Car- 
lo vingians. 

^  Decree  of  the  10th  of  July,  1870. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

CROSS-CURRENTS 

In  the  previous  chapter  much  was  neglected  for  the 
sake  of  carrying  the  history  of  the  Roman  Church 
connectedly  through  a  momentous  epoch.  We  must 
now  turn  back  and  close  the  gap,  by  tracing  the 
lines  on  which  that  part  of  Europe  which  had  thrown 
off  Romanism  had  progressed. 

And  first  let  us  look  at  a  very  large  subject  that 
will  send  us  forward  and  backward  from  Plato,  and 
Aristotle,  and  Aquinas,  to  the  great  intellectual  move- 
ment which  followed  that  of  the  Encyclopaedists  in 
France,  that  of  German  philosophy.  For  philosophy, 
and  its  branch  theology,  are  of  the  essence  of  the 
history  of  the  Church  and  have  perhaps  been  a  little 
neglected.  Philosophy,  without  ever  achieving  it,  has 
always  claimed  as  its  chief  object  the  coordination 
of  all  human  knowledge,  and  theology  has  been  merely 
a  variant  adding  to  philosophy  a  cult,  a  legend,  or  an 
example.  The  legendary  side  of  Christianity  has  re- 
ceived as  much  attention  as  appeared  necessary,  and 
what  has  been  said  of  its  theology,  in  terms  of  the 
Greek  and  Latin  languages  and  thought,  should  also 
suffice.  But  since  this  was  done  in  early  chapters, 
and  the  subject  is  difficult  and  at  the  very  root  of 
the  whole  matter,  it  may  be  as  well  partly  to  restate 
the  case  in  formal  terms. 


CROSSCURRENTS  .  301 

A  fundamental  distortion  lies  at  the  base  of  the 
Greek  philosophy,  and  of  the  Christian  theology 
which  was  based  on  it.  Language  was  assumed  to  be 
a  perfect  medium  for  the  expression  of  thought. 
Truth  was  assumed  to  be  absolute,  and  the  most  com- 
plex thoughts  to  be  expressible  in  so  many  words.  The 
world  as  a  whole  is  still  victim  of  these  assumptions. 
But  for  those  who  will  accept  a  more  humble  level  for 
human  perception,  knowledge,  and  mental  power, 
for  those  who  will  apply  evolutionary  ideas  to  lan- 
guage as  they  would  to  men,  the  opposite  position 
may  prove  more  convincing  even  if  not  argued  out 
at  full  length.  And  that  is  that  language  is  an  im- 
perfect vehicle  of  thought,  that  it  loses  vitality  with 
age,  that  any  cosmic  theory  or  absolute  truth  stated 
in  terms  of  philosophy  or  of  religion  is  little  more  than 
an  inadequate  play  on  words,  that  only  tentative  state- 
ments in  evolutionary  terms  connote  a  right  mode  of 
thought.  Of  the  two  modes  one  is  ancient,  or  Roman, 
or  Christian,  the  other  is  modern. 

Only  one  illustration  of  the  matter  here  in  question 
can  be  given,  one  of  those  famous  controversial  ques- 
tions that  fill  many  pages  of  the  history  of  the  Church, 
many  volumes  of  philosophy  and  of  theology.  This  is 
the  question  of  free  will  or  predestination.  Without 
going  back  beyond  the  Christian  era,  we  find  Pelagius 
holding  that  man  was  foreordained  to  salvation,  but 
subject  to  the  assertion  of  his  will;  Augustine  held 
that  predestination  was  absolute  and  apart  from  hu- 
man conditions.  The  latter  view  secured  imperial 
support,  became  the  rule  of  the  Church,  and  was 


302        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

transmitted  to  the  Protestant  sects  through  Luther 
and  Calvin.  But  what  does  it  all  mean?  Does  it 
mean  anything?  What  does  it  really  signify  to  say, 
or  to  deny,  that  a  man  can  exercise  freedom  of  will? 
We  know  in  a  plain  and  obvious  way  how  and  why  it 
is  a  man  eats  a  meal,  commits  a  burglary,  subscribes 
to  a  charity.  Our  explanation  may  not  go  very  far, 
is  not  abstract,  yet  it  fits  the  facts  closely  enough. 
Are  we  getting  a  greater  degree  of  truth  by  saying 
that  he  has  exercised  freedom  of  will  in  doing  it,  or 
that  he  was  predestined  to  do  it?  Or  are  we  not 
merely  setting  up  a  verbal  formula,  that  adds  nothing 
to  our  knowledge?  In  fact,  the  only  way  in  which  we 
can  deepen  our  knowledge  is  not  by  juggling  with 
these  formulas,  but  by  doing  the  work  now  being  un- 
dertaken in  our  laboratories  of  experimental  psycho- 
logy, experimenting  and  discovering  what  physical 
processes  and  nervous  reactions  are  caused  by  external 
impressions.  And  along  that  line  considerable  inform- 
ation is  now  rapidly  being  accumulated. 

This,  then,  is  the  reason  why  in  this  book,  thus  far, 
philosophy  and  theology  have  had  little  emphasis 
thrown  on  them ;  for  they  have  been  viewed  as  theo- 
retical incidents  arising  from  the  play  of  political, 
linguistic  and  emotional  forces.  Theology  has  always 
provided  formulas  for  proving  cases,  and  never  those 
statements  of  fact  that  might  really  throw  some  ray 
of  light  on  the  course  trodden  by  humanity.  But 
with  the  epoch  of  the  Renaissance  and  Reformation 
philosophy  opens  a  new  chapter,  and  deserves  more 
attention  as  it  gradually  draws  away  from  theology. 


CROSS-CURRENTS  303 

and  moves  slowly  towards  the  complete  break  with 
the  old  tradition  which  it  reaches  at  the  close  of  the 
nineteenth  century. 

The  birth  of  modern  philosophy  was  very  sudden; 
It  was  produced  by  the  shock  and  deliverance  of  the 
Reformation;  and  it  showed  two  sides  at  the  very 
beginning.  A  century  after  Luther  had  begun  his 
work  we  get  Descartes  in  France,  and  Bacon  in  Eng- 
land; they  stood  equally  for  the  liberation  of  the  Eu- 
ropean mind  from  the  old  ideas,  yet  their  paths  were 
widely  divergent. 

Bacon  boldly  rejected  Aristotle  and  the  syllogistic 
method.  His  emphasis  was  on  observation  and  facts, 
and  he  believed  that  metaphysics  could  never  be 
achieved  save  through  a  long  preliminary  process 
He  laid  down,  therefore,  the  fundamental  position  in 
a  revolutionary  mode  of  thought,  that  was  eventually 
to  prevail,  though  it  is  only  in  very  recent  vears 
that  the  beginning  made  by  Bacon,  and  continued 
by  Locke,  has  led  to  large  consequences,  first  with 
Herbert  Spencer  and  now  advancing  further  with 
Bergson. 

Descartes,  who  is  generally  termed  the  father  of 
modern  philosophy,  was  radical  but  not  revolutionary 
he  rejected  the  conclusions  of  the  old  philosophy  but 
adhered  to  its  method;  he  abandoned  Aquinas  but  not 
Aristotle.  Beginning  with  doubt,  now  so  thoroughly 
developed  since  the  days  of  Abelard,  he  swept  all 
away  until  he  reached  his  famous  fundamental:  / 
think,  therefore  I  am;  which  was  very  important  be- 
cause entirely  subversive  of  the  position  of  the  Church, 


304        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

yet  otherwise,  in  plain  sense,  nothing  but  a  conven- 
ient formula.  Thence,  still  gripped  by  the  old  method 
of  thought,  he  tried  to  reach  a  cosmic  conception, 
and  certainty.  And  it  is  this  aspiration  for  certainty 
more  than  anything  else  that  marks  the  Latin  mind, 
and  all  it  has  transmitted  to  the  European.  Few 
thinkers  even  to-day  have  the  courage  to  accept 
weakness  and  uncertainty  as  necessary  and  natural 
limitations. 

Descartes  was  followed  by  Spinoza  (1632-1677), 
who  developed  the  ideas  of  his  predecessors,  and 
came  to  a  rich  pantheism  of  a  pronouncedly  anti- 
religious  character.  In  this,  Spinoza  came  near  Bayle, 
and  helped  to  create  that  stream  of  ideas  which  in 
the  eighteenth  century  became  the  deism  and  athe- 
ism of  the  French.  In  England,  Hume,  a  contem- 
porary of  Voltaire,  was  the  chief  representative  of 
negative  scepticism;  while  Germany,  which  was  later 
to  draw  the  inspiration  for  its  rich  philosophy  from 
Spinoza,  produced  so  early  as  Leibnitz  (1646-1716)  a 
universal  scholar  whose  speculations  in  the  direction 
of  Christian  reunion  were  curiously  enough  developed 
from  that  master. 

The  Wars  of  Religion  had  depressed  Germany 
lower  than  any  other  part  of  Europe.  More  than 
once  in  earlier  centuries  she  had  been  on  the  point  of 
taking  the  lead  in  European  civilization.  During  the 
ninth  and  tenth  centuries,  while  France  and  Spain 
and  Italy  were  being  devastated  by  Norsemen  and 
Mussulmans,  the  secure  Rhine  and  Danube,  from 
Koblentz  to  Ratisbon,  were  developing  in  compara- 


CROSS-CURRENTS  305 

tive  peace.  Before  the  Reformation  this  was  one  of 
the  most  peopled  and  flourishing  parts  of  Europe, 
and  although  the  language  and  customs  were  still 
rude,  they  promised  great  things.  Luther's  virile  pen 
was  rapidly  creating  a  modern  German  literature 
when  the  desolation  of  the  Wars  of  Religion  burst 
over  Germany.  After  1648  the  country  was  ex- 
hausted and  for  some  time  failed  to  recover.  It 
was  only  well  on  in  the  eighteenth  century  that  by 
an  almost  sudden  effort  Germany  found  herself 
again.  In  the  realm  of  politics  the  House  of  Hohen- 
zollern  seemed  to  promise  a  greater  and  more  united 
nationalism  than  in  the  past.  In  the  domain  of 
thought  there  was  a  swift  development  of  literature, 
a  sort  of  belated  Elizabethan  era,  and  chief  in  that 
literature  came  a  remarkable  line  of  philosophers  who 
were  to  leave  a  deep  impress  on  European  thought. 
The  limits  of  this  book  once  more  impose  a  close 
selection,  and  so  Kant,  Hegel,  and  Nietzsche  must 
serve  to  illustrate  three  chief  phases  of  German  phi- 
losophy in  the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  centuries. 
With  Kant  (1724-1804)  we  have  the  great  eighteenth 
century  metaphysician,  the  analyzer  and  builder  of 
the  rationale  of  causality ,  the  shuffler  of  verbal  formu- 
las after  the  manner  of  the  Greeks,  but  in  a  new  lan- 
guage. In  him  there  is,  further,  a  certain  deep,  primi- 
tive purity  of  thought,  as  of  a  clean  whiff  of  icy  air 
from  far-away  Konigsberg  blowing  down  to  the 
sultry  Mediterranean.  For  apart  from  Kant's  stiff 
constructions,  the  backbone  of  all  subsequent  meta- 
physics, there  is  a  morality  about  him,  a  reliance  on 


306        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

innate  rectitude  and  sense  of  duty,  that  suggest  the 
possibiHty  of  a  Teutonic  substitute  for  the  ethics  of 
Romanism,  such  as  they  are. 

Kant  came  just  before  the  French  Revolution. 
But  his  more  practical  doctrines  of  conduct  were  in 
part  blended  into  the  ideas  of  the  great  League  of 
Virtue,  which  after  1808  helped  so  largely  to  stir  Ger- 
man patriotism  and  make  the  War  of  Liberation  pos- 
sible. The  work  of  Hegel  (1770-1831)  came  after  that 
war  had  closed  and  Prussia  had  regained  at  Water- 
loo the  prestige  she  had  lost  at  Jena.  Hegel  was  an 
intellectual  giant  and  the  greatest  European  force 
during  a  good  half-century  or  more.  He  was  in- 
tensely German  in  his  love  of  the  large  generaliza- 
tion and  cosmic  thesis  to  be  proved  at  all  hazards. 
But  although  in  this  direction  he  was  naively  echoing 
in  a  youthful  tongue  the  older  philosophy,  he  was 
intensely  vital  and  modern  in  other  directions.  His 
great  innovation,  using  the  word  in  a  generous  sense, 
was  the  introduction  of  the  evolutionary  idea  as  the 
foundation  of  history;  and  although  his  particular 
application  of  this  idea  to  the  German  people  and 
the  House  of  Hohenzollern  was  somewhat  provincial 
and  might  not  command  general  confidence,  yet  his 
point  of  view  marked  an  immense  advance  in  thought, 
had  the  deepest  influence  in  France  and  England, 
and  prepared  the  way  for  the  more  fully  developed 
doctrines  that  were  soon  to  follow. 

It  was  Darwin  in  the  middle  of  the  century  who, 
combining  vast  knowledge  with  a  ready  pen,  gave 
the  world  a  series  of  popular  formulas  for  the  evolu- 


CROSS-CURRENTS  307 

tionary  mode  of  thought.    And  it  so  happened  that 
Prussia  in  the  years  following  Hegel's  death  entered 
into  a  desperate  political  "struggle  for  life,"  from 
which  she  was  to  emerge  victorious,  a  "survival  of 
the  fittest"  under  the  leadership  of  Bismarck.   This 
struggle  coincided  with  the  youthful  years  of  Nietz- 
sche (1844-1900),  and  with  him  certain  tendencies 
find  their  ultimate  expression.   With  Kant  and  Hegel, 
German  philosophy  stands  aloof  from  Christianity 
and  yet  accepts  a  nebulous  deism  that  may  form  a 
golden  bridge  from  religion  to  nationalism,  from  faith 
in  the  Judseo-Roman  God  to  faith  in  a  vague  Teu- 
tonic supreme  being  who  occasionally  suggests  Val- 
halla, occasionally  the  Hohenzollerns,  and  occasion- 
ally a  mere  frigid  ethical  abstraction.  But  Nietzsche 
moves  a  step  further.    With  him  struggle  and  not 
attainment  is  the  all  in  all;  and  in  struggle  he  acclaims 
the  superman,  the  fittest  whose  survival  Nature  has 
ordained,  the  hero  of  force.   He  rejects  Christianity 
not  only  in  its  creed,   but  in  its  established  moral 
code,  against  which  he  launches  some  of  his  most 
violent  attacks.  He  is  the  counterpart  in  philosophy, 
less  balance  and  poise,  of  what  Bismarck  is  in  politics. 
In  the  philosophy  of  the  Germans,  then,  we  may 
see  a  great  current  of  ideas,  influencing  masses  of 
men,  and  showing  in  the  main  a  large  dislocation 
from  the  old  religious  ideas  of  Europe.   In  its  more 
narrowly  German  relations  we  see  it  blending  with 
a  great  political  realization  accomplished  ruthlessly 
through  war,  and  therefore  giving  a  fictitious  present- 
day  value  in  that  country  to  the  cult  of  force;  and 


308        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

blending  also  with  a  violent  economic  expansion  of 
world-wide  effect  and  full  of  pregnant  factors,  of 
which  for  our  purpose  we  note  but  one,  the  resultant 
quest  for  happiness  in  the  form  of  pleasure.  Great 
shall  be  the  reward  of  the  superman  of  war  or  of 
commerce,  in  terms  of  standardized  luxury!  These 
tendencies  in  Germany  are  but  feebly  balanced  by 
the  rapidly  weakening  hold  of  Lutheranism  and  Cal- 
vinism, though  Catholicism  in  the  south  shows  a 
much  bolder  front.  But  these  are  questions  not 
purely  local  to  Germany,  and  must  be  seen  later  in  a 
wider  application. 

German  philosophy,  especially  from  1750  to  1850, 
holds  a  place  of  honour  as  a  great  factor  in  mould- 
ing European  ideas.  In  France  and  England,  how- 
ever, there  were  movements  of  which  the  tendency 
was  on  the  whole  in  an  opposite  direction.  Victor 
Cousin  introduced  the  ideas  of  German  philosophy 
to  France,  but  his  eclecticism  was  unimportant  in 
its  effects  compared  with  the  work  of  his  far  more 
original  contemporary  Comte  (1798-1857).  For  the 
antecedents  of  Comte  we  must  look  back  to  the 
Revolution,  to  Rousseau,  and  to  Robespierre.  Comte 
viewed  the  world  as  one  from  which  Christianity  had 
already  been  uprooted,  leaving  behind  intellectual  and 
spiritual  anarchy.  His  mind  was  synthetical,  Latin; 
he  required  certainty,  preciseness,  organization.  And 
so  he  set  to  work  to  cut  out  of  whole  cloth  a  com- 
plete religious,  philosophic,  and  moral  system  with 
which  to  endow  humanity.  This  was  Positivism. 
Needless  to  say  that. humanity,  always  instinctively 


CROSS-CURRENTS  309 

preferring  custom  to  innovation,  particularly  when 
an  effort  of  the  mind  or  of  conscience  is  required, 
turned  its  back  on  Comte;  but  the  small  group 
of  his  followers  was  eminent,  and  the  doctrines  he 
taught  contained  so  many  valuable  elements,  par- 
ticularly in  what  has  come  to  be  known  as  social 
science,  that  at  the  present  day  Comte  is  steadily  ris- 
ing in  the  estimate  of  reflective  men.  He  was  the 
father  of  sociology;  he  wished  to  turn  it  into  a  re- 
ligion; and  it  is  not  absolutely  impossible  that  some- 
thing may  come  of  it  all,  in  time. 

A  few  words  will  serve  to  indicate  the  general  move- 
ment of  French  ideas  since  Comte  and  Cousin.  The 
latter 's  eclecticism  was  the  natural  starting-point  for 
the  relativist  ideas  of  a  school  that  followed,  and 
that  in  turn  prepared  the  way  for  the  present-day 
teaching  of  evolutionary  thought  stripped  of  all 
inherited  ancient  or  mediaeval  elements,  which  has 
more  than  once  been  alluded  to.  This  progress  again 
leads  away  from  the  old  religious  ideas,  though  it 
should  be  said  that  in  France  these  produced  a  long 
line  of  eloquent  defenders  through  the  whole  of  the 
nineteenth  century. 

In  England  philosophy  follows  the  modern  move- 
ment and  the  national  genius  away  from  abstractions 
to  practical  observations,  and  the  great  names  are 
generally  to  be  found  not  in  pure  philosophy  but  just 
alongside  of  it.  Adam  Smith  is  the  philosopher  of 
economics,  Newton,  of  mathematics,  Bentham  and 
Austin,  of  jurisprudence,  Mill,  of  politics,  Darwin,  of 
zoology;  and  even  when  we  reach  pure  philosophy 


310        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

with  Spencer  (1820-1903)  we  find  a  confessed,  if  un- 
warranted, disdain  for  all  previous  philosophy,  and  a 
preoccupation  with  facts  as  strong  as  that  of  Bacon 
or  any  of  his  successors.  But  Spencer  ranges  over 
the  whole  field  of  human  activity.  He  follows  Comte 
in  his  insistence  on  sociology,  but  he  adds  what  with 
Comte  is  ill-developed,  a  strong  evolutionary  sense. 
His  work  is  non-religious,  of  vast  influence,  though 
faulty  in  its  dogmatism  and  in  its  static  form  of  ex- 
pression. England,  then,  produces  much  in  the  realm 
of  ideas,  but  less  wide  of  scope,  more  practical  in 
application  than  what  we  see  on  the  continent  of 
Europe.  Beyond  the  seas  in  the  new  civilization  of 
America  we  get  little  in  the  realm  of  ideas  beyond 
one  supreme  burst  of  eloquence  in  Emerson  who 
gives  voice  to  the  accumulated  wisdom  of  altruistic 
rural  democracy. 

What  has  been  said  does  not  exhaust  the  subject. 
We  have  viewed  the  movement  of  European  ideas  in 
one  sense  only,  the  intellectual.  We  must  now  come 
to  the  popular  movement.  For  in  a  religious  organ- 
ization, if  ideas  are  fundamental  the  weight  of  sheer 
numbers  is  essential.  And  numbers  mean,  in  later 
European  history,  the  depressed  masses.  The  ques- 
tion now  is,  what  of  them? 

The  course  of  the  French  Revolution  admirably 
illustrates  what  is  perhaps  the  supreme  question  in 
the  popular  movement  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
That  great  political  upheaval  began  by  a  push  of  the 
middle  class  for  power  at  a  moment  of  extreme  mis- 
government.  Then  the  lower  class  slowly  began  to 


CROSS-CURRENTS  311 

assert  itself  in  terms  of  mob  violence  until  it  finally 
dominated  the  situation.  Yet  it  failed  to  obtain  per- 
manent control;  it  always  had  to  get  its  leaders 
from  the  middle  class;  its  moments  of  power  were 
fleeting  and  bad;  it  soon  sank  back  to  a  subordin- 
ate position.  And  among  the  various  reasons  that 
brought  this  about,  lack  of  education  was  the  most 
obvious,  perhaps  the  most  fundamental.  It  is  edu- 
cation, then,  that  must  be  singled  out  as  the  great- 
est factor  in  the  position  of  the  masses  when  the  nine- 
teenth century  opens. 

We  have  already  touched  on  this  subject.  In  France 
there  was  a  new  situation.  Formerly  the  Church  had 
been  the  only  school  of  the  people,  and  the  priest  the 
only  schoolmaster.  Now  a  contest  had  been  begun, 
one  that  was  to  continue  from  the  time  of  the  Revolu- 
tion to  the  present  day,  first  for  popular  education, 
then  for  its  control.  The  first  point  was  early 'won. 
The  second  has  seen  the  fierce  struggle  of  the  Church 
to  retain  power,  and  within  the  last  few  years  the 
violent  assertion  by  the  Republic  of  the  right  of  shap- 
ing the  minds  of  her  citizens  according  to  the  non- 
religious  or  anti-religious  views  now  prevailing  among 
her  governing  class.  The  effect  of  such  action  can 
hardly  be  overestimated,  and  it  is  not  too  much  to  say 
that  after  a  very  few  generations  have  passed  through 
the  secularizing  process  France  must  of  necessity 
become  completely  dechristianized.  Italy,  Portugal, 
and  even  Spain,  follow  in  the  footsteps  of  the  first  of 
the  Latin  nations. 

In  Germany  a  similar   process   is  going  forward, 


312        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

though  with  some  variations,  due  to  the  break  be- 
tween Protestant  and  Catholic,  and  also  due  to  the 
strong  inculcation  of  the  political  doctrine  of  Hohen- 
zollern  leadership.  Divine  right  assumes  a  Christian 
God,  and  so  in  Germany  the  government  effort  is  not 
so  much  against  religions,  as  in  the  direction  of  merg- 
ing the  religious  idea  in  that  of  the  nation,  or  rather 
state,  with  its  claim  to  duty  on  the  part  of  the  citizen, 
—  a  mode  of  thought  that  carries  one  back  to  Hegel, 
the  War  of  Liberation,  and  the  religious  revival  of 
the  first  half  of  the  century.  OflScially  religion  is  there- 
fore minimized,  because  kept  in  its  proper  place 
to  subserve  a  convenient  purpose,  while  intellectually 
and  in  a  latent  sense  it  steadily  loses  its  hold. 

In  the  English-speaking  world,  while  we  must  look 
to  England  for  the  intellectual  movement,  it  is  to 
America  we  must  turn  for  the  popular  advance.  In 
the  United  States  the  middle-class  victory  of  the 
War  of  Independence  did  not  result  in  a  permanent 
hold  of  power.  Democratic  forces  were  at  work,  with 
only  weak  aristocratic  elements  to  check  them,  and 
they  triumphed  early  in  the  nineteenth  century.  Yet 
in  the  absence  of  any  intellectual  movement  re- 
ligious ideas  remained  about  where  they  were.  The 
Protestant  sects  stood  their  ground  conservatively. 
Education  for  a  while  remained  in  a  rut  and  under 
strict  religious  control.  It  was  not  until  the  second 
half  of  the  century  that  a  marked  change  took  place, 
under  circumstances  that  will  presently  be  noted. 

In  England  the  result  of  the  Wars  of  Religion  had 
been  a  compromise  both  religious  and  political.  By 


;CROSS-CURRENTS  313 

the  settlement  of  1688  the  middle  class  had  obtained 
some  measure  of  influence,  and  this  was  extended  by 
slow  degrees.  It  was  not,  however,  until  the  middle  of 
the  nineteenth  century  that  the  push  of  the  lower 
class  for  power  was  felt,  nor  till  its  end  that  it  began 
to  near  its  goal.  But  for  various  reasons  education 
lagged  behind,  and  though  England  early  developed 
down  to  the  middle  class  a  splendid  system  of  schools 
that  still  flourishes,  the  lower  class  is  still  neglected, 
to  the  great  reduction  of  the  national  vitality.  This 
middle-class  education  has  been  on  the  whole  domin- 
ated by  the  ideas  of  State  and  Church. 

While  England  has  recently  produced  a  strong  but 
small  kernel  of  intellectual  activity  turned  sharply 
towards  practical  sociological  questions  with  such 
thinkers  as  Spencer  and  Gal  ton,  America  has  concen- 
trated her  unequalled  energy  wholly  on  economic  de- 
velopment. But,  on  the  other  hand,  while  England 
has  followed  a  sluggish  course  in  her  educational  de- 
velopment and  in  her  religious  thought,  America, 
especially  during  the  last  quarter  of  a  century,  has 
displayed  a  great  if  superficial  activity  in  this  direc- 
tion. This  must  be  qualified,  however,  by  not  omit- 
ting to  point  out  that  the  same  religious  wave  that 
so  strongly  affected  the  Catholic  world  in  the  first 
half  of  the  century  had  its  counterpart  in  England. 
The  conversion  of  Newman  from  the  Anglican  to  the 
Roman  Church  was  its  most  striking  incident  in  one 
direction,  the  great  growth  of  missionary  effort  in 
another. 

If  we  try  to  estimate  what  has  happened  in  America 


314        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

during  the  most  recent  period  we  shall  in  reality  ac- 
complish something  more.  For  America  is  no  longer 
English  save  in  language,  and  is  fast  becoming  Euro- 
pean. It  may  be  said  that  the  recent  and  present 
America  stands  for  that  part  of  Europe  which  little 
more  than  a  century  ago  was  submerged  socially, 
politically,  and  in  its  religion.  The  new  conditions 
have  broken  down  social  and  political  obstacles 
largely  by  dint  of  economic  activity  and  almost 
boundless  opportunity.  This  fact  dominates  all  else. 
A  great  push  for  popular  education  was  bound  to  take 
place  under  such  circumstances.  It  has  rapidly  put 
the  older  formal  sectarian  education  aside  and  has 
resulted  in  the  over-rapid  development  of  a  huge 
school  and  college  system,  crude,  and  necessarily  gov- 
erned by  the  economic  idea  of  applying  education  in 
terms  of  material  gain  and  not  of  mind,  or  of  con- 
science. It  is  perhaps  unnecessary  to  state  that  in- 
directly this  is  anti-religious,  and  a  great  influence 
in  the  breaking-down  of  the  old  religious  forms  in 
America  during  the  present  generation. 

In  the  situation  of  Christianity  in  America  we  may 
note  the  extreme  tendencies  that  the  march  of  Euro- 
pean history  has  produced.  From  the  slight  break 
of  Luther,  and  more  fundamental  divergence  of 
Calvin,  we  saw  how,  in  the  crumbling  away  from  the 
Anglican  Church  into  the  Protestant  sects,  we  had 
the  strongest  assertion  of  freedom  of  conscience.  The 
sectarianism  of  England  was  transplanted  beyond  the 
Atlantic,  and,  in  a  virgin  soil,  at  first  displayed  a  youth- 
ful intemperance  worthy  of  Calvin  or  of  Philip  II. 


CROSS-CURRENTS  315 

This  soon  stiffened  into  a  formalism  not  yet  alto- 
gether extinct.  But  with  the  advent  of  the  bustling 
nineteenth  century,  and  especially  its  second  half, 
great  changes  took  place.  With  the  most  extreme 
political  and  social  liberty  unchecked  by  education, 
it  was  not  unnatural  that  ideas  should  run  loose, 
that  the  meaning  of  ancient  dogmas  should  be  for- 
gotten and  twisted  into  new  shapes,  that  sect  should 
beget  sect,  and  become  almost  indefinitely  multi- 
plied. In  an  American  year  book,  one  hundred  and 
forty-five  sects  are  now  enumerated,  a  few  of  which  are 
of  high  antiquity  and  tradition  like  the  small  body 
of  Moravians,  but  most  of  which  have  arisen  in  very 
recent  times. 

Let  us  see  what  may  be  said  in  general  terms  of  these 
sects.  Their  beliefs  represent  a  gradual  watering  out 
of  the  old  belief  of  the  Church.  And  this  watering 
out,  in  its  latest  phases  among  the  more  highly  edu- 
cated congregations,  represents  the  clash  between  the 
new  spirit  of  scientific  observation  of  facts,  so  largely 
used  in  industrial  pursuits,  and  the  mythological 
basis  of  religion.  Miracle  and  myth  are  slowly  be- 
ing abandoned.  The  belief  in  Hell  disappeared  quite 
rapidly  in  the  second  half  of  the  nineteenth  century; 
in  another  fifty  years  the  belief  in  Heaven  may 
quite  conceivably  have  gone  too. 

The  multiplication  of  sects,  the  juxtaposition  of 
men  and  creeds  of  all  races,  helps  in  itself  to  break 
down  belief.  And  America  presents  in  some  ways  a 
spectacle  similar  to  that  of  the  Roman  Empire  in  the 
first  century,  an  age  of  universal  religious  tolerance 


316        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

and  of  very  slight  conviction.  The  parallel  is  tempt- 
ing, for  it  holds  good  at  other  points.  But  there 
are  important  differences  as  well,  and  among  them 
may  be  noted  emphatically  that  while  the  forward 
spirits,  the  men  of  intellect  and  conscience  of  the 
earlier  age,  were  looking  eagerly  for  a  new  faith  that 
should  give  them  the  ethical  satisfaction  for  which 
they  longed,  —  and  found  it  in  the  shape  compacted 
by  Paul,  —  at  the  present  day  it  is  otherwise.  Even 
if  the  Christian  churches  are  crumbling  away,  they 
still  stand,  as  they  did  at  the  beginning,  for  an  ethi- 
cal principle,  —  and  it  is  not  for  failure  at  that  point 
that  they  are  losing  ground.  The  Church  has  had 
its  painful  moments  of  unmorality,  and  of  inverted 
morality,  yet  it  has  never  ceased  to  contain  an  ethi- 
cal principle. 

Again  taking  America  for  the  extreme  exemplifi- 
cation of  a  process  that  must  sooner  or  later  extend 
wherever  Protestantism  is  established,  we  may  note 
particularly  the  position  of  the  minister  in  those  sects 
that  adopted  the  Calvinistic  system  of  Church  gov- 
ernment. The  minister  is  paid  by  his  congregation,  is 
largely  under  the  influence  of  what  shall  please  it.  As 
faith  declines  the  congregation  becomes  more  and 
more  a  social  organization,  the  service  a  social  rite, 
the  minister  a  social  leader.  His  flock  wants  music, 
and  flowers,  and  meetings,  and  ceremonies  to  fit  its 
whims.  The  minister  tends  to  follow  the  lead  of  the 
master  who  holds  the  purse-strings,  lapses  more  and 
more  into  the  social  entertainer,  and  preaches  from 
the  newspaper  instead  of  from  the  Bible.  Even  in  the 


CROSS-CURRENTS  317 

few  great  universities  of  America,  pulpit  utterances 
are  too  often  insincere,  half-educated,  popular  in 
the  worst  sense. 

While  Protestantism  inch  by  inch  surrenders  its 
fundamental  beliefs,  the  Catholic  Church  (and  in  less 
degree  its  Anglican  and  Lutheran  ofiFshoots)  main- 
tains the  position  we  have  seen  it  assume  under  the 
Pontificate  of  Pius  IX.  Since  the  Vatican  Council 
there  has  been  no  wavering.  Not  an  inch  has  been 
conceded  to  the  modern  world.  A  vast  mass  of  liter- 
ature is  yearly  placed  on  the  Index,  while  a  steady 
and  world-wide  effort  is  made  to  keep  Catholic  minds 
untouched  by  modern  ideas.  The  Pope  still  holds  the 
presence  of  the  king  of  Italy  in  Rome  illegal.  He 
affects  to  be  a  prisoner  in  his  palace,  his  cathedral, 
and  his  gardens.  And  so  long  as  he  maintains  that 
position,  he  continues  non-national,  the  head  of  all 
Catholic  Christians.  Should  he  accept  the  plea  of 
many  Catholics  and  yield  his  claim  to  temporal 
power,  then,  in  the  opinion  of  the  party  now  in  the 
ascendant,  he  would  sink  back  at  once  into  the  posi- 
tion of  chaplain  to  the  king  of  Italy.  As  to  this,  what 
the  future  holds  in  store  cannot  be  predicted.  Will 
the  Popes  continue  to  hold  out.^  Will  the  kings  of 
Italy  continue  successfully  along  their  middle  course 
between  hostile  Catholicism  on  one  side  and  hostile 
radicalism  on  the  other? 

Be  that  as  it  may,  and  it  is  one  of  the  big  questions 
of  the  near  future,  how  is  Catholicism  actually  situ- 
ated? The  great  democratic  masses  of  to-day  have  in 
large  part  escaped  from  the  fold.  Again  taking  the  ex- 


318        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

treme  example  of  Europe  in  America,  not  more  than 
one  eighth  of  the  population,  and  that  poorly  edu- 
cated, is  Catholic,  while  more  than  one  half  of  the  rest, 
who  still  generally  describe  themselves  as  Christians, 
have  no  regular  church  affiliation.  What  a  contrast 
with  that  time  so  very  few  years  ago  when  in  almost 
every  little  village  of  Europe  the  Catholic,  Lutheran, 
or  Anglican  priest  shepherded  his  flock  under  the 
closest  supervision,  when  dissent,  abstraction,  and 
nonconformity  were  almost  unknown. 

At  the  present  day  the  Catholic  Church  endeav- 
ours to  maintain  itself  on  precisely  the  old  lines.  It 
is  almost  easier  now  than  it  was  some  centuries  ago 
to  appreciate  the  comforting  side  of  the  doctrine  of 
authority.  For  now  the  opposite  doctrine  of  toler- 
ation prospers,  and  is  accompanied  by  unpleasant 
features,  — the  torturing  uncertainty  of  so  many  pious 
minds,  the  crass  materialism  of  others.  Authority  is 
for  many  the  avenue  of  escape  from  these  things, 
and  that  is  why  so  much  nobility  of  living  and  high 
intellectuality  is  still  to  be  found  in  the  ranks  of  the 
clergy.  This  example,  backed  by  a  great  tradition 
and  machinery,  lends  much  weight  to  the  Church, 
and  the  concentration  of  its  effort  and  intelligence 
on  controlling  minds  and  consciences  surely  means 
that  among  the  less  educated  nations  more  than  one 
chance  will  present  itself  for  regaining  some  of  the 
lost  ground. 

On  the  whole,  the  vital  principle  that  has  given 
Christianity  its  long  and  painful  history  resides  in 
the  Roman  Church,  and  has  not  been  moved  thence 


CROSS-CURRENTS  319 

by  the  Reformation  and  the  assertion  of  freedom  of 
thought.   Nor  will  rationalizing  on  the  truth  or  un- 
truth of  the  Roman  dogma  help  the  doubter.   For 
what  is  truth.?  It  is  what  we  believe.   And  what  do 
we  believe.?    Sometimes  what  is  demonstrated  by 
reason,  but  more  often  that  merely  which  we  have 
frequently  repeated.   And  since  not  we  only  have 
repeated  the  formulas  sacred  to  the  Blessed  Virgin 
and  the  Trinity,  but  those  before  us  back  to  genera- 
tions so  remote  that  Mary  was  then  not  Mary  but 
Diana,  and  Ceres,  and  Astarte,  and  that  great  Asiatic 
mother  of  the  Gods  whose  annals   have  no  begin- 
ning, we  should  realize  that  it  will  be  some  time  yet 
before  a  greater  truth  than  that  of  Rome  can  be 
invented  to  take  its  place. 

Even  more  than  this  can  be  said  of  the  central  le- 
gend of  Christ,  which  to  so  many  is  all  that  remains 
of  the  meaning  of  the  old  faith.  For  not  only  does  it 
contain  the  great  tradition  of  the  redeemer  god,  sacred 
to  so  many  ages  and  countries,  but  in  its  probably 
true  historical  connection  with  actual  poverty  and  suf- 
fering it  strikes  a  chord  immensely  sensitized  during 
the  last  two  hundred  years.  The  humanitarian  pre- 
occupation distinguishes  our  age  from  all  other  ages, 
and  it  helps  those  who,  going  back  to  pre-Roman 
Christianity,  throw  dogma  to  the  winds  and  preach, 
very  much  as  Paul  did,  Jesus  only.  This  same  preoc- 
cupation also  tells,  however,  in  an  opposite  direction, 
in  that  of  social  science  dissociated  from  all  Christian 
formulas.  For  what  does  Comte  lack  but  a  legend 
to  be  the  originator  of  a  new  religion?  And  if  the 


320        THE  HOLY  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 

legend  and  the  mystery  are  of  the  essence  of  religion, 
would  not  the  myth  of  a  redeemer  god  aflSxed  to 
Comte  give  us  about  the  same  result  as  humanita- 
rian and  undogmatic  Christianity?  If  all  this  is  true, 
does  it  not  reinforce  the  point  so  often  emphasized 
in  these  pages,  that  what  is  distinctively  Christian 
is  the  Latin  idiosyncrasy  of  thought,  of  aspiration, 
that  bound  Europe  for  so  many  centuries  in  the  iron 
chains  of  the  great  Grseco-Roman-Judaic  composite 
structure,  the  history  of  which  we  have  attempted  to 
trace  through  the  centuries? 

We  saw  it  emerging  obscurely  and  confusedly,  at 
the  very  moment  when  the  Roman  Empire  was  com- 
ing into  existence,  from  the  crucible  of  the  decayed 
religions  and  philosophies  of  hellenized  Asia.  We 
tried  hard  to  catch  some  faint  glimpse  of  the  mys- 
terious and  elusive  personality  who  gave  it  his  name, 
and  with  Paul  we  came  to  the  statesman  and  prophet 
of  revolted  conscience  and  imperial  views  who  im- 
parted to  it  form  and  stability.  Through  the  down- 
ward course  of  the  crude,  inhuman  civilization  of 
Rome  we  saw  it  steadily  rise,  till  with  the  fall  of  the 
Empire  it  sat  in  Rome  herself,  whence  it  surveyed 
with  uncertain  eyes  the  chaos  of  teutonized  Europe. 
Quickly  it  rose  to  the  situation,  embodied  the  Ro- 
man ideas  in  a  new  and  loftier  form,  and  learned 
to  play  on  the  superstition  and  ignorance  of  men, 
while  urging  them  to  charity  and  virtue.  We  saw  its 
great  effort  for  theocratic  empire  fail,  and  the  rise 
of  new  languages  and  new  ideas  in  a  more  complex 
civilization,  until  the  heedless  Popes  of  the  Renais- 


CROSS-CURRENTS  321 

sance  were  suddenly  faced  by  deep-founded  revolt. 
Then  followed  the  most  horrible  of  the  many  pages 
of  blood  that  stain  the  Christian  annals,  and  at  a 
ghastly  price  Europe  in  part  liberated  her  mind  from 
the  Latin  constraint.  From  that  day  to  our  own  the 
generations  are  not  many,  yet  they  have  witnessed 
changes  so  momentous  that  to-day  we  have  reached 
a  point  whence  we  can  look  backward  and  trace  with 
reasonable  accuracy,  and  charity,  the  birth,  rise, 
height,  and  decline  of  the  Christian  Church.  Pre- 
cisely what  stage  that  decline  has  reached  it  is  not 
yet  possible  to  estimate. 


THE  END 


INDEX 


Aaron,  16, 17, 19. 

Abdurrhaman,  183. 

Abelard,  212,  213. 

Absolution,  177. 

Ada  Sanctorum,  142. 

Acton,  258,  298. 

Adonis,  46,  75-79, 113. 

yElia  Capitoline,  108. 

iEschylus,  152. 

Agnellus,  207. 

Ahura  Mazda,  29, 118. 

a  Kempis,  240. 

Alaric,  157, 158,  164. 

Albertus  Magnus,  222. 

Albigenses,  200,  219,  230. 

Alembert,  d',  275. 

Alexander  the  Great,  7,  9,  12,  36, 

85. 
Alexander  V,  232. 
Alexander  VI,  241-243. 
Alexandria,  12,  40-43,  72,  84,  89, 

123, 126, 153. 
Alexius,  216. 
Ambrose,  155, 156. 
America,  282,  310,  312-316. 
Anabaptism,  251. 
Ancient  of  Days,  34. 
Ann  Boleyn,  267. 
Anselm,  207. 
Antinomians,  135. 
Antioch,  90. 

Antiochus  Epiphanes,  42. 
Antiochus  the  Great,  38,  41,  42. 
Antoninus  Pius,  103. 
Antony,  41, 120. 
Antwerp,  271. 
Apocalypse,  124, 125. 
Apollo,  46,  111.  112,  140,  141. 


Aquinas,  222-224." 

Arabia,  3. 

Arbela,  36. 

Architecture,  197. 

Arianism,  159. 160, 178. 

Aristotelianism,  xviii,  xix. 

Aristotle,  8-11,  152,  201,  222-224, 

303. 
Arius,  135, 136, 138. 
Armada,  271. 
Arminius,  270. 
Arnold  of  Brescia,  214,  215. 
Artaxerxes,  28,  35. 
Artemis,  112. 
Asia  Minor,  12,  122-124. 
Asmoneans,  44,  45,  51. 
Asoka,  39,  40. 
Assyria,  26,  27. 
Astarte,  78, 79. 
Astolf,  184. 

Athanasius,  135,  136,  138. 
Atheism,  xvii. 
Athens,  43, 70, 72. 
Attila,  166. 
Attis,46, 113. 
Augsburg,  260,  261,  271. 
Augustine  of  Canterbury,  179,  180. 
Augustine  of  Hippo,  142,  145,  164, 

165, 173,  222. 
Augustine,  Pseudo-,  173. 
Augustinians,  218. 
Augustus,  69, 120. 
Aurelian,  103,  106,  108,  109,  116, 

120, 121, 150. 
Austin,  309. 
Averrhoes,  201,  223. 
Avicenna,  223. 
Avignon,  220, 227,  231,  234. 


324 


INDEX 


Baal,  23, 76, 120. 

Babylonia,  3,  12,  26,  27. 

Bacon,  F.,  303. 

Bacon,  R.,  222. 

Ball,  John,  229. 

Baptism,  117, 118. 

Basle,  249. 

Bayle,  273-275, 304. 

Belisarius,  168. 

Bellona,  114. 

Benedict,  178, 179. 

Benedictines,  204. 

Bentham,  309. 

Bergson,  303. 

Bernard,  212,  213. 

Bernardin  de  St.  Pierre,  281. 

Bethlehem,  78. 

Bishops,  132, 133. 

Bismarck,  307. 

Boccaccio,  227,  228, 248. 

Bologna,  200. 

Bonaparte,  286,  288. 

Boniface  VIII,  183,  220, 225. 

Borgia,  Caesar,  241,  242. 

Borgia,    Roderigo,    see    Alexander 

VI. 
Bosnia,  105. 
Bourbon,  Con.  of,  252. 
Bourbons,  xvii. 
Britain,  180. 
Brunehault,  180. 
Brunetti,  223,  224. 
Buddha,  30-32,  38,  61, 142. 
Buddhism,  38-40. 

Caesar,  69, 85. 
Caiaphas,  65. 
Caligula,  85,  88,  89, 102. 
Callixtus  II,  209. 
Calvin,  262-264. 
Calvinism,  264. 
Cambridge,  200. 
Canaanites,  50. 
Canon  law,  175, 176, 202. 


Canossa,  208. 

Capernaum,  5G,  61. 

Captivity  of  Babylon,  22,  23,  80, 

33. 
Caraffe,  see  Paul  IV. 
Cardinals,  207. 
Carlovingians,  183, 187. 
Carnival,  113. 
Carthage,  41. 
Cathari,  230. 
Cathedrals,  201. 
Cavour,  297. 
Celibacy,  163, 164, 206. 
Cellini,  241. 
Ceres,  114. 
Chalcedon,  137, 165. 
Chalons,  166. 
Charlemagne,  185-187. 
Charles  Albert,  292. 
Charles  the  Bald,  191. 
Charles  Martel,  183. 
Charles    V,    237,    243.    244,    250, 

252. 
Charles  VIII,  242. 
Chivalry,  199,  211. 
Choiseul.  279. 

Christmas,  119, 121, 143, 186. 
Cicero,  170. 
Circumcision,  89,  91. 
City  of  God,  145, 164, 165. 
Claudius,  73, 102. 
Clement  of  Alexandria,  126-128. 
Clement  II,  204. 
Clement  III,  208. 
Clement  V,  220. 
Clement  VI,  227,  251. 
Clericis  Laicos,  219. 
Clermont,  210. 
Clotaire,  168. 
Clovis,  167. 
Cologne,  222. 
Colonies.  71, 72. 
Commodus,  103, 115. 
Communion,  117. 


INDEX 


S^5 


Communism,  74,  75, 81. 
Comte,  308-310,  320. 
Concordat  of  1516,  264. 
Confession,  176, 177. 
Confucius,  32. 
Consalvi,  287. 
Constance,  233-235,  238. 
Constantine,    xix,   104,    112,    131, 

132,  134,  136,  138,  139,  148,  154, 

173. 
Constantinople,  137, 138, 148. 
Contarini,  253,  254,  256. 
Cordova,  223. 
Corinth,  91. 
Counts,  188. 
Cousin,  308,  309. 
Crassus,  45,  51. 
Creed,  136, 137. 
Cremation,  117.- 
Croatia,  105. 
Cromwell,  268. 
Crusades,  210,  211,  215,  219. 
Curia,  209,  245-248,  250. 
Cybele,  111-113,118,143. 
Cyrus,  27,  28,  34. 

Damascus,  82. 

Damasus,  162, 163.  \ 

Daniel,  34. 

Dante,  222,  224-227. 

Danube,  105. 

Darius,  28,41. 

Darwin,  306,  307,  309. 

Darwinianism,  xii,  xvii. 

Davis,  134. 

Decius,  108, 130. 

Declaration  of  the  Rights  of  Man, 

293. 
Decretals,  163, 191. 
De  Hoeretico  Comburendo,  231. 
De  Jure  Belli  ac  Pads,  274. 
Demeter,  114. 
Descartes,  303,  304. 
Diana,  112, 114, 143. 


Didionnaire  hist,  et  critique,  275. 

Diderot,  275. 

Didier,  184. 

Diocletian,  103,  121,  122,  130,  131, 

141, 142. 
Directoire,  286. 
Divina  Commedia,  224,  225. 
Dollinger,  298. 
Dominicans,  199,  218,  230. 
Domitian,  102, 106-108, 129. 
Donation  of  Constantine,  191. 
Donatists,  160. 
Dupanloup,  298. 

Ebionites,  74, 75,  92, 135. 

Egypt,  3, 12. 

Elbe,  105. 

Elizabeth,  267, 268. 

Emerson,  310. 

Emperor,  73. 

Encyclovedie.  275,  283. 

Ephesus,  91, 112, 137, 165,  289. 

Epicureanism,  12, 88, 154, 155. 

Epicurus,  12. 

Episcopal  succession,  134. 

Epistles,  101. 

Erasmus,  240,  250,  253. 

Erfurt,  245. 

Esculapius,  111. 

Eucharist,  268. 

Euphrates,  69. 

Euripides,  152. 

Evolutionism,  xviii,  xix,  10, 11. 

Exarchate,  190. 

Excommunication,  176, 177. 

Ezekiel,  33,  34. 

Ezra,  25,  35,  36. 

Felix  IV,  178. 
Fenelon,  277. 
Feudalism,  188-190,  198,  199,  202, 

203. 
Flaminio,  255. 
Fra  Angelico,  214. 


826 


INDEX 


Francis  of  Assisi,  216-218. 
Francis  I,  251,  264. 
Franciscans,  199,  216,  218. 248. 
Franks,  167, 182. 
Frederick  Barbarossa,  215. 
Frederick  II,  200,  215. 
Freewill,  301,  302. 
French  Revolution,  284,  310,  311. 
Froissart,  228. 

Galilee,  67. 

Gallicanism,  277. 278. 

Gallon,  313. 

Gamaliel,  81. 

Garibaldi,  292. 297. 

Gennaro,  141. 

Gentiles,  274. 

Gerbert,  192. 

Germans,  157. 

Gerson,  233. 

Gesta  Romanorum,  144, 145. 

Gethsemane,  67. 

Ghibellines,  208,  215. 225, 229. 

Gioberti,  290. 

Glaber,  197. 

Gnosticism,  xiv,  126-128,  135,  153. 

Golgotha,  66,  67. 

Grace  of  God,  122. 

Granicus,  36. 

Greece,  5,  6. 

Greek  intellectualism,  5-12,  37,  38, 

42,  43. 
Gregory    I.    150,    167.    173.    178- 

180. 
Gregory  III,  183. 
Gregory  VI,  204. 
Gregory  VII,  198,  204, 206-208. 
Gregory  XIII,  142,  259. 
Gregory  XVI,  288-290. 
Gregory  Nazianzen,  153. 
Greuze,281. 
Grotius,  273, 274. 
Guelphs,  208, 215. 
Guise,  266. 


Gustavus  Adolphus,  262. 

Hadrian,  Emperor,  103. 

Hadrian  1, 184-185. 

Hadrian  IV.  214, 215. 

Hannibal,  41, 42. 

Healing,  61,  62. 

Heaven,  58-60. 

Hebert,  285. 

Hecate,  113, 114. 

Hefele,  298. 

Hegel,  306,  307, 312. 

Hegira.  181. 

Helena,  194. 

Heliogabalus,  120. 

Heliopolis,  76. 

Helios,  120. 

Hell,  58-60. 

Hellenism,  5. 

Heloise,  213. 

Henry  III,  203,  206-208, 210. 

Henry  IV  of  Germany,  204. 

Henry  IV  of  France,  264-266, 

Henry  VIII,  266,  267. 

Heresy,  174,  230, 233. 

Herod  I,  45,  51. 

Herod  Agrippa  I,  73. 

Herod  Agrippa  II,  73, 89. 

Hilaria,  112, 113. 

Hildebrand,  see  Gregory  VII. 

Hindus,  31. 

Hobbes,  267. 

HohenzoUerns,  305-307, 312. 

Hoiran,  113. 

Holbach,  283. 

Holland,  269-270. 

Homer,  5, 152. 

Homoiousion,  135-137. 

Homoousion,  135. 137. 

Honorius,  165. 

Horace,  141, 149. 

Horus,  46, 113. 

Hospitallers,  199. 

Huguenots,  264,  265, 276. 

Humanitarianism,  281. 


INDEX 


327 


Hume,  304. 
Huns,  165, 166. 
Hus,  232,  234,  235,  239. 
Hypatia,  153. 

Idumaeans,  45. 

Immaculate  Conception,  289,  294, 

295. 
Immortality,  58-60. 
Index,  259-317. 
Individualism,  20,  21. 
Indus,  12,40. 

Infallibility,  173, 294,  297, 299. 
Inhumation,  117. 
Innocent  1, 143, 164, 165. 
Innocent  II,  213,  214. 
Innocent  III,  198,  199,  215,  216, 

219, 230. 
Innocent  IV,  230. 
Inquisition,  230,  231,  254,  259,  263, 

266,270,271. 
Interdict,  214,  215. 
Investiture,  204,  208, 209. 
Irenseus,  172. 
Isaiah,  24. 

Isidore,  Pseudo-,  191,  207. 
Isidore  of  Seville,  173,  207. 
Isis,113-115, 118, 143,144. 
Issus,  36. 
Italian,  217, 225, 226. 

James  I,  268. 

Jansenism,  277. 

Jebusites,  16. 

Jehovah,  15,  22,  23,  25,  38,  42,  76, 

126. 
Jena,  306. 
Jeremiah,  24,  25. 
Jerome,  163. 
Jerusalem,  16,  35,  40,  46,  50,  53,  62, 

64, 74,  92, 194. 
Jesuits,  255-259,  265,  266,  278,  279, 

288, 290, 292-294, 297. 
Jesus,  47-58, 72, 84. 88,  97. 


Jews,  3, 4, 13-16, 72. 

John,  the  Apostle,  101,  124|  125, 

129. 
John  the  Baptist,  53-55, 113. 
John,  King  of  England,  216. 
John  VIII,  191. 
John  XII,  192. 
John  XXIII,  233. 
Jonah, 33,  34. 
Jordan,  54-56. 
Joseph  of  Arimathea,  67. 
Joshua,  5, 34. 

Joshua  ben  Parahiyah,  47, 48. 
Julian,  152. 
Julius  II,  243. 
Julius  III,  257. 
Juno,  114. 
Justinian,  167,  168,  170,  171,  173, 

222. 

Kanishka,  40. 
Kant,  305-307. 
Katharine  of  Aragon,  266. 
Kleopatra,7,41,120. 
Knox,  268. 

LaBarre,281. 

Languedoc,  200. 

Laodicea,  193. 

Latin,  200. 

Law,  201. 

Leibnitz,  304. 

Leo  1, 165, 166, 177. 

Leo  III,  186. 

Leo  IX,  206. 

Leo  X,  243,  247. 

Leo  XIII,  293. 

Leonardo,  241. 

Lettres  Provinciales,  279. 

Levi,  16, 17. 

Levites,  16, 17,  21-23, 25. 

Locke,  273,  303. 

Logos,  125, 126, 129. 

Lollards,  231, 232. 


328 


INDEX 


Lombards,  159, 168, 183-185. 
Louis  XIV,  273,  %1 5-111. 
Loyola,  255, 
Luke,  95,  96,  99, 106. 
Luther,  245,  249-251, 260. 
Lutheranism,  260-262. 
Luxeuil,  187. 

Maccabseus,  Alexander,  47. 

Maccabaeus,  John,  25. 

Maccabaeus,  Mattathias,  42. 

Macchiavelli,  241,  242,  267. 

Macedonia,  12. 

Magna  Mater,  112. 

Mahdi,  the,  24. 

Maintenon,  Mme.  de,  276. 

Mainz,  183. 

Mani,  150. 

Manichseanism,  150. 

Marcionites,  135. 

Marcus  Aurelius,  103, 106, 108. 

Mariana,  278. 

Mariolatry,289,295. 

Mark,  95, 99. 

Marozia,  192. 

Mars,  161. 

Marsiglio,  229. 

Martin  V,  234, 236. 

Mary,  Virgin,  113, 143, 144, 289. 

Mary  Stuart,  269. 

Mary  Tudor,  268.  , 

Matthew,  95. 

Maxentius,  131. 

Maximilian  II,  243, 261. 

Mazarin,  275. 

Mazzini,  292, 293. 

Medicine,  201. 

Mediterranean,  3,  4. 

Melanchthon,  249,  253, 256. 

Melkart,  23. 

Menander,  152. 

Merovingians,  182, 183. 

Merton,  218. 

Meshach,  34. 


Messianic  prophecy,  54, 74, 75. 

Mexico,  244. 

Michael  Angelo,  79, 241. 

Mill,  309. 

Millennium,  195, 196. 

Minerva,  114. 

Miracles,  17-21,  217. 

Mithra,  29,  33,  34,  38,  46,  75,  76, 

116-119, 121, 125. 
Mithridates,  116. 
Modernism,  xi,  xii. 
Mohacs,  244. 
Mohammed,  24, 181, 182. 
Mohammedanism,   181,   182,   199, 

202, 236. 
Moloch,  23. 

Monasticism,  161, 162, 177-179. 
Monophysites,  160. 
Montanists,  135. 
Monte  Cassino,  179,  222. 
Montesquieu,  279, 280. 
Montfort,  219. 
Moravians,  315. 
Mortmain,  163, 219. 
Moses,  14, 16, 17, 24. 
Mt.  Tabor,  5Q. 
Musa,  182. 
Mysticism,  228. 

Nana,  113. 

Nantes,  Edict  of,  264, 276. 

Naples,  168, 188,  208, 216, 222. 

Napoleon,  xv. 

Nehemiah,  14, 35, 36. 

Neoplatonism,  128, 152. 

Neptune,  140. 

Nero,  74,  92, 102, 107, 129. 

Nerva,  103. 

Nestorians,  160. 

Newman,  180,  313. 

New  Testament,  94-100. 

Newton,  309. 

Nicsea,  8, 135-137, 159, 164, 233. 

Nicholas  V,  241. 


INDEX 


329 


Nietzsche,  307, 308. 

Nineveh,  34. 

Nominalism,  212,  213. 

Normandy,  188. 

Normans,  188,  202. 

Nouvelles  de  la  Repuhlique  des  lettres, 

274. 
Novatians,  135. 
Nuremberg,  271. 

Old  Testament,  3-5,  13-16,  35,  42, 

44. 
Ommiads,  182. 
Osiris,  113. 

Ostrogoths,  159, 167, 168, 178. 
Otto  1, 192. 
Otto  III,  192. 
Oxford,  200. 

Palestine,  3,  4. 12, 16. 

Paris,  200,  222. 

Parma,  241. 

Parthia,  69. 

Parthians,  51. 

Pascal,  277,  279. 

Passover,  64,  65. 

Patrician,  207. 

Patripassians,  135. 

Paul  the  Apostle,  24,  33,  34,  80-84, 
88-96, 100, 133, 163, 169, 171. 

Paul  of  Samosata,  150. 

Paul  III,  253,  256,  257. 

Paul  IV,  254,  255,  257,  258. 

Paulicians,  160. 

Pavia,251. 

Peasant's  Revolt,  251. 

Pelagians,  160. 

Pelagius,  164, 165. 

Penance,  176, 177, 195. 

Pentateuch,  14. 

Pepin  the  Short,  184. 

Perrone,  294. 

Persia,  12,  27-30,  33,  35,  36,  69. 

Pertinax,  104. 


Peru,  244. 

Pescara,  241. 

Peter,  74, 75,  79, 80,  81,  92, 100. 132, 
133. 

Peter  the  Hermit,  211,  212. 

Peterhouse,  218. 

Petrarch,  226,  227,  238. 

Pharisees,  47,  60,  64. 

Philip  the  Fair,  219,  220,  225. 

Philip  of  Macedon,  36. 

Philip  of  Orleans,  280. 

Philip  I  of  France,  210. 

Philip  II  of  Spain,  270. 

Philo.  84,  88-92,  124,  126, 128,  129, 
152. 

Philosophy,  7-12. 

Piacenza,  210. 

Pieta,  the,  79. 

Pietism,  282. 

Pilgrimage,  194, 195. 

Pisa,  232. 

Pius  IV,  258. 

Pius  V,  259. 

Pius  VII,  286,  287. 

Pius  IX,  256,  291,  292,  299. 

Plato,  8,  30,  32,  33,  128,  129,  152, 

228. 
Pliny,  107. 

Plotinus,  126, 128, 152. 
Pola,  253. 
Pombal,  279. 
Pontifex  Maximus,  134,  138,  139, 

149, 172. 
Pontius  Pilate,  66, 67. 
Port  Royal,  277. 
ProBmunire,  229. 
Praetor,  188. 
Praz,  232. 

Predestination,  301, 302. 
Priests,  133. 

Printing  Press,  258,  259. 
Probus,  104. 
Prophetism,  21-24. 
Proserpine,  114. 


330 


INDEX 


Protestantism,  xi,  xvi,  xvii. 
Provence,  200. 
Ptolemies,  41. 
Punjab,  40. 
Purgatory,  225,  226. 
Puritans,  268. 
Pythagoras,  30,  32. 

Quanta  Cura,  295-297. 

Ra,  113, 120. 

Radetzky,  292. 

Rationalism,  270. 

Ravenna,  162, 168. 184. 

Realism,  212,  213. 

Reformation,  xvi. 

Relics,  194, 195. 

Renaissance,  237-241,  246. 

Resurrection,  75,  77, 78,  117-119. 

Rhamnusia,  114. 

Richelieu,  275. 

Rienzi,  227,  228,  238. 

Robespierre,  285, 287. 

Romanism,  xi. 

Roman  law,  169, 172-175. 

Romanticism,  288. 

Rome,  4,  5,  12,   41-44,  51,  68-71, 

91, 148, 157, 158, 166, 168,  252. 
Romulus  Augustulus,  159, 166. 
Rousseau,  282-285, 287. 
Rudolf  II,  261, 262. 

Sacrament,  117. 

Sadducees,  47,  60. 

St.  Bartholomew's  day,  264. 

St.  Josaphat,  142. 

St.  Mandeville,  187. 

St.  Martin,  187. 

St.  Peter's,  121,  243. 

St.  Remi,  187. 

Salamanca,  200. 

Salerno,  208. 

Salic  law,  178. 

Samaritans,  50. 


Sanhedrin,  44,  45,  50,  53,  62.  6e 

73. 
Santa  Restituta,  141. 
Saxons,  180. 
Schism,  166,  231. 
Scholasticism,  201, 212. 
Second  Advent,  132, 193. 
Selden,  267. 
Seleucids,  41,  44,  69. 
Seneca,  86,  87, 169, 240. 
Septimius  Severus,  103, 106. 
Septuagint,  43, 44. 
Serapis,  143. 
Serfdom,  188-190. 
Sermon  on  the  Mount,  57. 
Servetus,  263. 
Severus,  Alexander,  103. 
Severus,  bishop,  141. 
Sforza,  251. 
Shamash,116,125. 
Shrines,  194, 195. 
Sicily,  188,  216. 
Simon  bar  Cochba,  53. 
Siricius,  163, 164. 
Sixtus  V.  259. 

Slavery,  70,  71,  86, 170, 188, 189. 
Smith,  309. 
Soano,  204. 

Social  Contract,  293. 

Socinus,  263. 

Sociology,  309. 

Socrates,  8, 22, 23, 32, 33. 

Sophocles,  152. 

Sorbonne,  218. 

Spencer,  303,  309,  310,  313. 

Spener,  282, 287. 

Spinoza,  304. 

Spoleto,  293,  294. 

Stephen  the  Martyr.  81. 

Stephen  II,  184. 

Stilicho,  158. 

Stoicism,  12, 86-90. 108, 126, 240. 

Strossmayer,  298. 

Stubbs,  175. 


INDEX 


331 


Suarez,  274. 
Suleiman,  244. 
Sybel,von.211. 
Syllabus,  295,  296. 
Sylvester,  139, 150.       • 
Synagogues,  88. 
Syria,  3, 12. 

Talmud,  14,  44,  47, 49. 

Tammuz,  23,  76-78. 

Tarsus,  72, 80, 91. 

Taurus,  119. 

Templars,  199. 

Temple,  62. 

Tertullian,  149. 

Tetzel,  249. 

Theodoric,  159, 167, 168. 

Theodosius,  155, 156. 

Theology,  201,  223. 

Thirty  Years'  War,  262,  271. 

Thucydides,  27. 

Tiberias,  56. 

Tiberius,  66, 102. 

Tilly,  262. 

Titus,  53, 74,  106. 

Toledo,  159,  223. 

Toleration,  265. 

Trajan,  103, 106, 107. 

Trent,  256-259. 

Trinity,  113, 129. 

Troy,  5. 

Truce  of  God,  203. 

Tugendbund,  306. 

Tyrannicide,  278. 

Ugolino,  202. 

Ulm,  271. 

Ulpian,  171. 

Unam  Sandam,  220. 

Unitarianism.  263,  270. 


Urban  II,  210. 
Ursinicus,  162. 

Vandals,  166, 168. 

Vatican  Council.  173, 297-299. 

Vedas,31. 

Vendee,  285. 

Venice,  162,  251.      * 

Venus,  114. 

Vesta,  111. 

Vestals,  143. 

Vienna,  244. 

Visigoths,  157-159,  167,  176,  178, 

182. 
Vitiges,  168. 
Voltaire,  279-281,  284. 
Vulgate,  163. 

Waldenses,  230,  232. 

Waldo,  230. 

Wallenstein,  262. 

Waterloo,  306. 

Wesley,  282,  283,  287. 

Westphalia,  peace  of,  262,  273,  274. 

William  the  Silent,  269. 

William  III,  273. 

Wittenberg,  245,  248. 

Worms,  271. 

Worms,  Concordat  of,  208. 

Worms,  Diet  of,  250. 

Wulfila,  158, 159. 

Wycliffe,  229,  230,  232,  235,  239. 

Ypres,  271. 

Zachary,  184. 

Zama,  68. 

Zeno,  12,  45,  86,  87, 152, 15S. 

Zoroaster,  28. 

Zwingli,  249, 250. 


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